


Sacred Geometry

by SkySamuelle



Series: A Different Mystic Falls [1]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 02 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-06 13:09:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 68,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkySamuelle/pseuds/SkySamuelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mystic Falls will be never be the same again after Founders' Day. Not with Katherine and a recently turned Jeremy allying to resurrect Anna and Pearl. Not with Stefan and Elena on the receiving end of Katherine's sick games. And Bonnie and Damon? Well, they are stuck at the epicenter of everything. S2AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  


**Title: Sacred Geometry**

**Author:** Sky Samuelle

 **Characters:** Bonnie and Damon centric, but Katherine, Jeremy, Elena and Stefan will be nearly as heavily featured. This is probably as close to an ensemble fic as I'll never get.

 **Pairings:** Bonnie/Damon, Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Anna

 **Rating:** Mature

 **Timeline:** Post 1.22

 **Summary:** Mystic Falls will be never be the same again after Founders' Day. Not with Katherine and Jeremy allying to resurrect Anna and Pearl. Not with Stefan and Elena on the receiving end of Katherine's sick games. And Bonnie and Damon? Well, they are stuck at the epicenter of everything.  
  
  
  
   

**Chapter 1**

Sometimes Damon wonders if Elena even suspects how alluring she makes herself to him, handing _him_ crumbs of herself so easily, even while she gives her everything to his little brother. As someone who has spent so many decades focusing every waking thought and every fantasy on a whore with her same face, Damon found in that human girl an unexpected comfort. Her sympathy, her understanding, her _friendship_ … they are tokens he has not gained or wanted or sought, and yet she gave them anyway to him. So effortlessly, whereas Katherine had forced him to sweat and bend backwards for the merest glimpse behind her flawless mask.

Damon doesn't understand why, in a moment of necessity, Elena would call Stefan first, Bonnie second and ignore him completely after… after _that kiss_. It was a long, steamy kiss and it showed that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, regardless of how well she hid it.

So it s offensive that she is forgetting it so soon. It's offensive that Damon is forced to welcome himself into Bonnie's car to get to the Gilberts' without looking like a complete fool.

The witch, of course, manages to ignore him completely, except that one filthy, disdainful look she threw at him after she found him occupying the passenger's side.

She didn't even bother _trying_ to send him on his way, this is how much of a nuisance she considered him. Despite the situation, Damon found the fact more than a little disquieting. Nobody had ever truly dismissed him since he had abandoned his mortality, and even before that his looks and personality had made it a rare occurrence.

He spares a fleeting thought to those not-so-distant days when the little witch knew nothing about her heritage and he could stalk her at his leisure, in his crow form. Damon has never been the one to appreciate the vestal virgin attitude, but Bonnie' s childlike warmth and purity were such an impressive contrast to Emily's frigid, all-knowing standoffishness that it got to him. He remembers staring at her from the tree in front of her bedroom window as she undressed with her blinds open, thinking of her like one of those juicy, ripening summer fruits you can't avoid wanting to sink your teeth into.

He misses having that level of control over human life. It was an addictive rush.

Be as it may, once the unlikely duo has reached the Gilbert household, they find Elena rushing out onto the porch even before Bonnie stepped out of the car, Stefan practically attached to her side.

Damon maintains his neutral visage while the brunette clutches the witch in a brief but violent hug before pulling her toward the house. He expects to either be ignored again, or that the very sight of him will make Elena fidgety- what happens is that Elena acknowledges his presence with a nod, without questioning it, and then gets her explaining done, still grasping at Stefan's hand like she hasn't a single worry at his reaction. Which is stupid. Elena should know that this is exactly the kind of thing that would push Damon to enlighten his brother with some really revelatory comments.

"It's horrible. When I got home, he was here, dead and I saw his fingers on the floor. He's been drained! And Jenna was upstairs, asleep. I couldn't wake her until Stefan got here. We think she was compelled. God, what if…what if Isobel is the one who did it? I'm the one who led her to us! "

"Elena"- Bonnie' s voice is firm, smooth and soothing as water- "you can't think of things like that now. It's not- "

"I just want to find Jeremy"– Elena interrupts her friend, engaging her gaze with wide, terrified eyes- "We couldn't find him anywhere. I need to know he's all right. I can't lose him too."

"Of course not," - Bonnie nods, squeezing the other girl's arm reassuringly, keeping her tone low and calm because Elena has never looked this broken- "just give me one of his shirts. "

They go in and the witch tries not to pay too much attention to the bloody mess the kitchen has become. It's not so much because the spectacle of a corpse and his missing fingers turns her stomach, but rather the fact she really, really hopes that just being here won't trigger a brand-new gory vision.

The girls rush up the stairs, the two vampires striding after them, and they get to Jeremy's bedroom without wasting time on other words.

'Something doesn't add up' –Damon thinks all along. Elena and Stefan are too _genuinely_ unaffected by him, and he needs to shut off the hungry desire to lash out at everyone in the room to reason the situation out clearly.

This is when he notices Elena smells different than she did when he had kissed her. He had been so distracted by Anna's death and how strongly it had reminded him of that last day he had lived as a mortal, than he had not paid too much attention to it before. The Elena he has kissed smelled like expensive perfume, a spicy aroma that masked the natural scent of her skin all too well. This Elena just smells like herself.

It occurs to Damon that he should be able to smell at least traces of perfume on Elena, and that vampires smell much fainter scents than humans.

He recalls Elena's wary, circumspect body language when she met him on her porch, then considers her aloofness when Jenna had discovered them in their little transgression...

When Jenna had _invited her in_.

Jonathan Gilbert could not have died much later, could he?

And he had been drained by a vampire who knew better than to leave his ring on.

 _A vampire like Katherine_ , he considers, dread and trepidation mixing in with rage.

Jeremy hands the sketch to Katherine, forcing a sense of calm on himself as her fingers linger against his a fraction of second more than necessary. He won't give her the satisfaction of seeing him flinching.

Even if he's really starting to see why Anna used _that_ faintly disdainfultone when talking about her mother's oldest friend.

Anna… thinking of her is almost too much. Everything he used to feel is heightened now, and those emotions he had started to find relief in where she was concerned are no exception.

He chooses not to shut that burning nostalgia off, because Anna was amazing and she deserves to be missed, and he is the only one left who can do that.

A wicked grin spreads over Katherine's glossed lips as she looks appreciatively up and down her drafted portrait. "It will do," she hums, folding the paper to tuck it in her leather jacket's pocket, her eyes lit up with anticipation of something the boy truly doesn't care to know.

"Tell me how we'll do it," he asks instead, trying to look tougher than he feels. There's a very small fragment of him that wants to impress this cruel, hardened vampire who wears his sister's face.

No, maybe 'impress' is not the right word. What he wants is to learn. To be as indestructible as she appears.

Katherine flutters her eyelashes coquettishly at him, leaning closer and invading his personal space.

He shivers but doesn't back away. This pleases her enough to be more complacent toward his curiosity.

"Don't get any weird ideas in your crafty little head, Gilbert. You can't go and resurrect your _other_ girlfriend as well. I admire you for trying, nonetheless. Eternity has no taste if you set limitations to what you can have. "

Surprise scatters across Jeremy's features very briefly before a determined blankness comes to cover it. He doesn't appreciate the insinuation over his assumed disloyalties, but he won't deny that he has been thinking about Vicky as well. Vicky didn't deserve to die, either, and he could do anything to rectify that mistake, why wouldn't he have to try? It didn't need to be a betrayal.

"You know a lot of stuff for someone who is supposed to have been in town for such a short time. "

Katherine gives him a particularly chilling version of a lopsided grin. "My sire is a Precognitive. He sees a lot of stuff, as you call it, before it even happens. Feeding on humans gives us all sorts of intriguing abilities over time. I seem to recall that Annabelle was very good with controlling animals. I wonder how strong you will be, if you live long enough…the potential in you Newborns fascinates me. "

"Is this why you turn so many of them?"

It's a bad idea, to get so brazenly sarcastic to her face. He knew it even before her hand clutched around his throat and squeezed so hard that it felt like his lungs were suddenly collapsing.

"Yes"- she whispers in his ear, then effortlessly hoists him up so his feet are dangling in the air. - "I'm the boss, Jere. Respect it, always."

And with that she launches his body against the wall like it weights no more than a ragdoll. His ribs crack painfully during the impact.

"The blood of a sire, the blood of a childe, a talented necromancer. That's what we need to resurrect a vampire. It's even the one reason you are not ashes yet. Stay smart and I won't be forced to forget it."

"Okay"- Jeremy coughs, struggling to get back on his feet and massaging his sore throat- "I got it. You are the boss of this show, I'm the henchman. Good for you."

Katherine laughs, seemingly amused by his attitude.

"I only hope you have a really good incentive to convince Bonnie to help, because I don't think she will be very collaborative. "

"I've heard she is a real white hat"-Katherine admits with an unconcerned shrug –"but it'll be extremely entertaining to work on that."

"Do you think you can corrupt her?"-Jeremy snorts, passing a hand through his hair in exasperation- "It sounds like a rather long-term plan. Let's just find another witch."

"No"- the other vampire deadpans, rolling her eyes upwards mockingly- "I like this one right fine and her lineage has a history of great power. I don't settle for second best. "

 _But,_ -he wants to reply, instinctively- _I want Anna now._ The thought must be all over his face, because Katherine only gives one assessing look at him before shaking her head in disapproval and scoffing:

"Oh, stop being such a mood-killer scarecrow. It won't take all that long, _if_ you begin spilling all you know about her. "

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything and anything. Her sense of right and wrong is what keeps a witch caring about the consequences of her spells. If we can blur those lines in her mind, it will take very little to sway her to our side. "

Bonnie holds one of Jeremy's favorite sweatshirts to her chest and closes her eyes, shifting her focus from her five 'external' senses to her inner one, reaching out for a glimpse of a boy who was almost family to her. At first it's like groping through the darkness for a solid support, finding nothing but void anywhere. Then it changes, and that chilly, freaky sensation she associates with Stefan and _his kind_ descends on her. It's like icy fingertips just grazing her skin, whispery voices barely outside her ear. It's Death.

Suddenly she finds him, enveloped in a bottomless dusk: Jeremy's face and hands are covered with blood, his eyes engorged and black with an animalistic thirst. He's licking the crimson liquid off his wrist with an unhurried relish. There are countless corpses at his feet.

Bonnie opens her eyes with a grimace of revulsion.

"What have you seen?"

It's Stefan who asks, his hands comfortingly squeezing his girlfriend's shoulders. Elena doesn't appear to have the strength to do anything but lean her back against his chest and gaze at her best friend with a mute terror.

Bonnie looks back at her dejectedly, breathes out the wretchedness she feels gripping her in a vice to find the nerve to say what she has to.

"I'm sorry, Elena - he's already a vampire. That's the one thing I could see."

Elena hides her face in the crook of Stefan's arm before pain becomes apparent on it, her whole body shuddering as her boyfriend presses her closer and kisses the top of her head.

It's such a transparent display of intimacy that Bonnie needs to look away from it, finding Damon's figure on the threshold, his arms crossed before his chest and his expression too vacant to be natural.

Bonnie allows her gaze to linger on him until he responds to her attention. His eyes are not empty like his features but they are pensive, a cruel ferocity flaring behind their superficial coldness at her inspection.

_What do you know?_ \- the witch wants to demand, but instinct has her repressing the urge in favor of a wiser circumspection. 

 

  


 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katherine keeps on scheming, Elena finds her anchor in Stefan, Damon and Bonnie are still going in mildly hostile circles around each other

  


** Chapter 2 **

  


There was nothing Katherine Pierce loved more than breaking hearts. You could say it was because, once upon a mortal time, hers was repeatedly broken, but honestly her human history wasn’t any more tragic than average. And she has always been a petty, manipulative, and ambitious creature.

As a matter of fact, her ambition was her first downfall back when she was no more than the cunning fourteen-year-old daughter of the cook of a British duke. She had been blossoming fast into her womanhood and too proud to easily accept those daily humiliations that came along with her social status.Perhaps she’d been overconfident, thinking she could actually seduce the youngest, most naive son of the Duke to marry her. Or perhaps her mistake was giving up her virtue before a wedding ring was on her finger.

Maybe…maybe she had simply been in love, too reckless and silly to not accept running away with that beautiful, romantic boy. For a few months, it was the closest to happiness she ever came…but then, as it should have been obvious to foresee, her young lover got tired of her and returned to his family. He left her without a penny which forced her, like many other dishonored women, to whore herself out in order to survive. 

Stefan Salvatore had reminded her so much of that one, first, stupid love. It was very therapeutic to pit him against his adored older brother as much it was satisfying to plague his simple, rational mind with constant thoughts of her. Ah, to force Stefan to love her more and more every day, while every fiber of his being fought against all that she stood for was an uniquely empowering experience.

Having Damon under her thumb was just as sweet, but for completely different reasons. She had understood right away the kind of man he was: so passionate and so very lost, utterly stifled from the kind of life and society he was born into.

Damon was so completely enraptured with her from the first fatal glance that no compulsion was _ever_ necessary. All it took it was a bit of strategic pushing, the occasional well-placed insinuation or lingering caress, and he was past the edge. The way he easily grew to depend on her was fascinating , because what really drew him in was her darkness, or perhaps the absolute freedom that came with it. Yes, Damon Salvatore was thirsting for freedom even before Katherine came along, and he was so caught in that quiet, colorless desperation which nobody noticed that he didn’t care how he got out. He was so beautiful in his quest for self-destruction, like a black flame eager to burn itself out. 

It was pleasantly surprising to Katherine that she could now sense the same aching abyss inside Jeremy Gilbert. Empathy was the one gift no one would suspect immortality had bestowed on her, but it was definitely the most useful weapon in her arsenal. It made manipulating humans and vampires alike so much easier, so she was extremely careful not to expose it . Only her sire and Emily had ever known about that special ability of hers and certainly not because she had revealed it of her own free will.

_ ‘So, what am I going to do with little Jeremy?’  _ She wonders, mildly intrigued by the possibilities. His devotion to Anna isuseful for now, so she won’t mess with it. Even if his eagerness got on her nerves. Jeremy still has to grasp the main thing about being immortal – _nothing truly matters._

Not death, life, love, or even hatred.

It was only the games you could play with those that got you past the boredom and magnified every moment of your existence.

Katherine likes the idea of resurrecting her old friend, but she is in no hurry to execute her sire’s orders and bring their plan to fruition. She is more set on enjoying the ride than she is on achieving the endgame, although it’s starkly clear that failure is not an option. Katherine Pierce always gets what she wants. Always. 

Right now, it’s important that her true purpose remains a secret, and it’s unfortunate that her privacy has been compromised by her chance encounter with Damon. She would need to keep the brothers distracted, which was going to be a lovely challenge more than an actual complication. 

Katherine leaves the sketch Jeremy had made for her on Stefan’s bed, right under his pillow. She lightly kisses the red rose blossom before placing it over the bedspread.

“Oh, we’ll have so much fun together, my dear heart,” she murmurs, satisfied. 

\---

Damon has always been a selfish creature, and it won’t change just because he actually wants to keep fair Elena Gilbert safe. Telling he has met and kissed Katherine will probably be inevitable at some point, but it’s not even worth considering right now. The humiliation of being fooled by that bitch once more is too fresh and the emotions of those around him too volatile. He won’t share what he knows before he has put together a plan, or before the truth has become a means to gather some control on his little brother and his girlfriend.

He doesn’t even have the decency to feel guilty about lying which is comforting, considering how nauseatingly soft he has behaved recently. “If Jeremy is a vampire, it at least explains how John met his maker.”

The blunt lie is out of his mouth before he can fully weigh the consequences. If they think Jeremy is the culprit, they won’t be looking out for Katherine. Which is a risk but one worthy of taking in order to gain some time.

Elena flinches at his insinuation, blinking fast to not cry while she presses herself harder against Stefan’s side. The display makes Damon bitter because this should be _him_ , either with Katherine or Elena, and instead he keeps getting burnt while his useless brother gets everything handed to him effortlessly.

It’s disgusting. 

Stefan doesn’t reply either, just hugs Elena and runs his palms all over her back, like she is a child in need of comforting after a nightmare.

That’s disgusting too, the way those two physically respond to each other nearly instinctively. Damon doesn’t want to see it, but the truth is there and it scratches deep. 

_ You see how difficult it is to not hate Stefan when he  _ always _has it better?_

“We need to call the police. This will look suspicious enough as it is.”

Bonnie’s voice is firm and practical as it cuts the thick silence, and everybody turns to look at her at the same time. 

“Or we might just misplace the corpse so they find it somewhere else,” Damon dishes back, not comfortable with allowing her to call the shots.

“And why would we do that?” the witch inquires, tilting her head and condescendingly arching her brows at him. Just the sort of attitude that Damon finds both endearing and irksome about her.

“So the Sheriff won’t hunt Jeremy down before we do?” he provokes her with a shrug and a superior smirk. “The general conclusion will be kind of hard to miss once they interrogate Jenna and find out she was alone with Jeremy and Uncle J _right_ before she fell asleep. Especially considering that Anna was with Gilbert Junior when they have taken her. ” 

“How do you know that?” Stefan asked, turning his attention away from his girlfriend, his gaze and voice reflecting a hint of suspicion Elena picks on and mirrors right away.

_ ‘They are like fucking Siamese twins. _ ’ Damon considers, nauseated and angry with himself for ever expecting differently. 

“I came over to tell Jeremy personally that Anna was dead. He looked quite alive then.” Despite what he feels, he sounds nothing but elegantly bored.

Elena glances back and forth between her boyfriend and best friend as if waiting to know from them what the better course of action is. Damon finds himself extremely irritated by her behavior, for both the spontaneity she is slighting him with- _again_ \- and her transparent show of weakness. He has never seen Elena so fragile and for a reason he can’t pinpoint it doesn’t sit well with him: he just wants to grab her and shake some sense into her.

“Perhaps it’s better if we keep Jeremy’s disappearance from the Council as long as we can,” Stefan admits, meeting Bonnie’ s austere gaze with an expression that can only be described as apologetic. “He must be very confused right now. If we can find him before he feeds again, he can still learn to keep his appetites in check. It could help motivate him if he had the chance to hold on to his human life for at least a couple of years. ”

Bonnie nods reluctantly, pressing her lips in a grim line and turning on her heels to leave the room. All this truly means is that she will be doing very questionable things to conceal vampire tracks.

But it’s Jeremy, so what is she supposed to do?

“Just stay here while I take care of it,” she sighs, not surprised nor pleased as Damon’s footsteps follow her into the hallway.

\--

“Do you think Jenna will be all right tomorrow morning?” Elena asks quietly, her fingers gripping the hem Stefan’s shirt too tightly once they are alone. This is her breaking point, and she can’t stand to move. 

There’s no reason Jenna should not be fine and dandy in the morning, but she needs the reassurance regardless. Remembering how upset Jeremy has been recently with her for erasing his memory just makes her feel guiltier for allowing Stefan to compel her back to sleep, right after he had used compulsion to awake her. She knows Stefan is not perfect- he sometimes makes decisions on her account, and he may be exasperatingly secretive about certain parts of his life, but in the end, he’s her anchor and his presence by her side never fails to make her feel like a better person than she’s ever been. With him she’s stronger, more forgiving, more understanding, and more self-aware. _More alive,_ in every connotation of the term.

Sometimes she thinks that, ironically, when he’s around she is like a sunflower, gravitating toward the sun and feeding off his reflected light, although the distance between ground and sky is so extensive. 

Even now, just holding onto Stefan makes the sheer devastation she is feeling bearable. She had so many questions for Jonathan, and now she’ll never get to ask them. She will never get to know if under the uninviting surface there was a man she could have cared for, or if he was going to be just as disappointing as Isobel. 

_ Jeremy is dead. Jeremy is a vampire _ –the thought keeps echoing inside her head, yet she can’t really wrap her mind around it. She doesn’t know how to feel about his turning. Maybe it was him who killed her father. After all, her father had caused Anna’s death. Or maybe they could find him and Stefan could succeed where he had failed with Vicky. Maybe he is just another person she has loved and lost. Or is going to lose.

It’s terrible, the not knowing. 

“She’s going to be perfect.” Stefan strokes her hair soothingly and while his lips brush against her neck, his tongue grazes her skin like tasting her was a natural reaction he can barely contain. It’s with little things like this that he holds her together. Elena shivers, leans more into his body.

“Stay here with me, tonight? I don’t feel like leaving Jenna alone, but I can’t stand- ” She doesn’t finish her phrase with ‘ _being away from you now_ ’ because the words feel silly and inappropriate on her tongue. Yet, the prospective of spending the night here without him to keep her from splintering into thousand pieces is terrifying.

“Where else would I be?” Stefan asked, pressing a kiss to her temple. 

\--

There are no words to describe the spectacle Bonnie finds waiting for her in the kitchen. Anything she fleetingly imagined pales before the real horror of the scene. The Gilbert’s kitchen is almost unrecognizable, with random, large spatters of blood abundantly staining walls, floor tiles, and cabinets.

Whoever did this, it was clear he had stabbed Elena’s biological father with a wild unrestrained relish.

To believe Jeremy is capable of this level of brutality hurts. 

Jonathan Gilbert’s corpse is slouched against the pale cabinets, his livid lips disclosed in a silent scream, his eyes wide open but unseeing, the large knife still dug in his gut; the front of his shirt blotted a dark red. His throat sports a broad, gaping wound, like a vicious animal ripped repeatedly at the exposed flesh just for the pleasure of it. His fingers are scattered on the floor, in front and beside the body. 

Bonnie feels the nausea mounting in the pit of her stomach, tastes bile in her mouth. Her eyelids drift shut and she can sense the fresh imprint violence has left on every object around her like a dense fog hovering on the very air she breathes.

Shivering, she sees hands eagerly stabbing, observes through another’s mad eyes Jonathan’s visage twisted in agony, feels the savage joy at the scent of blood thickening into the air with everydeep gash inflicted, the rising hunger at the sight of crimson liquid oozing from each wound.

The impulse to gag is there, intense, and difficult to swallow down, but she manages to wrap her arms around herself and force her body to relax. Damon stands behind her, grips her elbow as her step falters.

Her forceful and useless attempt to tug herself free of his iron grasp almost causes her to fall backwards when he suddenly releases her, smirking smugly.

The fleeting distraction is enough to let her psychic powers overcome the obscure imprint of violence hovering all over the place. It’s a poison snaking through her defenses and forcing her body to react with a spontaneous revulsion. Bonnie runs to the sink and retches.

“That was attractive” Damon mocks, loud and clear, as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Fuck you,” she dishes back aggressively, without turning, washing her hands. There’s something inside her that feels acutely like she should explain that it was not the carnage that turned her stomach but its psychic impressions, but just because Damon acts like everyone needs to try and prove their worth to him doesn’t mean she owes him anything. Even if being perceived as weak by the arrogant asshole bothers her. 

“Are you offering?”

“Do you think this is really the time for disgusting innuendo?”

Her features as she tilts her head to face him compose a perfect mask of loathing. His grin dims a little, appearing unnaturally fixed for barely a second or two, but he replies like the usual cocky smartass. 

“There’s no such thing as the wrong time for innuendo…or for concealing corpses.” 

It may be perverse, but taking his frustration out on her sensitive self is taking the edge off his rage. He feels much more ready to focus on the matter at hand now. Judgy little witches are apparently good for something else other than creating unwelcomed debts. Who knew?

“You get funnier by the second,” she states, her voice as flat as her mood because for some reason she just can’t persuade herself to be smart and let him have the last, meaningless word.

“And you get stiffer. Can you actually to do anything about this mess?” 

The more Bonnie looks like she is ready to murder him, the more vindicated Damon feels. It’s _magic_.

“I can fix the kitchen,” her tone is lilting, accompanied by a falsely bright, sarcastic imitation of smile, “but I believe that relocating mangled bodies is your field of expertise.”

Before he can come up with some other apt comment to humiliate and/or provoke her, the witch is reaching for the salt jar and turning her back on him, a low murmur of an alien language rising into the air while she walks around the kitchen tossing handfuls of salt against walls and cabinets alike.

“I thought so,” he throws at her anyway, taking extra care to sound as sardonic as possible. After all, if he allowed himself to feel anything, he would be having a truly terrible night, and misery loves company. 

The way the heavy scent of blood starts to recede in response to her chanting, even before the blood stains begin to discolor is kind of … _interesting_ to watch, the vampire admits to himself. 

It’s a short-lived acknowledgement, of course, since Damon shakes the thought off contemptuously to collect the scattered fingers off the floor and fold them in a napkin. He tucks them in one of Jonathan Gilbert’s pockets and hoists the body over his shoulder. 

\--

\--

 

  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damon and Stefan have an harsh confrontation that springs an unwelcome epiphany on the older Salvatore and spreads Stelena goodness all over my pages. Jeremy's involvement in Katherine's plans gets him progressively more distant from his humanity.

**Chapter 3**

The morning after, when Stefan returns to the Salvatore residence, there are only ugly, ugly surprises waiting for him. 

“Let me see if I can understand this better,” the younger Salvatore breathes out, pinching the bridge of his nose with that particular mix of resignation, disgust, and anger that only his brother _ever_ elicits from him, “you were supposed to get the body of Elena’s father somewhere other than her house, so you decided to take it to our basement and melt it in acid instead?”

“That’s pretty much it,” Damon waves the implicit reprimand away, looking studiously bored while he pours himself a glass of gin. 

“Has it not occurred to you that this might get Elena even more upset than she already is? I thought you were set on at least _pretending_ you care about her!”

Despite Stefan’s resolution to say this calmly, his voice raises several notches by the end of that sentence. It gets Damon to finally look at him, but the amused expression with which his outburst is received does nothing to improve things.

“He was her father for like _five seconds_ before he met the Grim Reaper, and he was her least favorite uncle before that. I loathed John for way longer. Don’t I deserve some satisfaction? I even tried offing the guy before Isobel came along with her pesky accidental revelations. Doesn’t this say anything to you? I had so much pent-up frustration to work on… ” 

“You are unbelievable,” Stefan growls, rushing vampire-speed up the stairs before his turmoil can entertain his asshole of a brother some more. What was he thinking, trusting Damon could hold his raging psychosis at bay for once?

How is he supposed to explain this to Elena? It’s not like she doesn’t have enough on her plate as it is…

“A word of advice? You should _not_ tell it to your girlfriend anytime soon!” a sarcastic and unrepentant snicker reaches him from downstairs, “We don’t want to traumatize her further, do we?”

Seething, Stefan slams his bedroom’s door soundly closed and wonders why he bothered arguing with Bonnie and risking his neck for someone _this_ intent on ruining anything he touches.

_ It must be some fine form of masochism - there’s probably a psychiatric definition for it.  _

He just wants to lie down a little and reason out the best option, but as soon he has walks up to his bed, he is frowning at a red rose resting elegantly on the pillow.

_ What game are you playing now, brother?  _

Stefan can’t say what instinct brings him to pull aside the bedspread and upturn the pillow, but as soon he does, he knows he won’t like how this day is turning around. The papersheet he unfolds none too patiently is a sketch of Elena’s face and upper body, a crooked smile on her lips and a flirtatious light behind her completely unnaturally black eyes.

“Damon!” he snarls, furious and confused, “What the hell does this mean?”

“What are you droning on about now?” his brother chuckles from the edge of the threshold.

“This,” Stefan waves the sketch in the other vampire’s face, and Damon frowns, his features darkening as he snatches the paper from his hands. 

“It’s not my doing, genius.”

“Oh, _really_?”

The aggressive sharpness of Stefan’s sarcasm, however justified, awakes Damon’s appetite for emotional wreckage. That and the scent of sex and Elena that still hangs around his younger sibling.

“Have I mentioned Katherine is back in town?” 

Damon’s smile as he announces it is nothing short of smoldering, the cool blue-green of his eyes glittering with the light of perverse enjoyment. It’s transparently clear he’s feeding off the effect of his revelation. The way Stefan’s jaw instantly slackens and his forehead wrinkles more than usual gives him a unique, thrilling kind of satisfaction he has quite missed lately.

“What?”

“Last night I saw her hanging around Gilbert’s house as I was leaving. I talked to her, smelled her, and even tasted her. You can thank me for not giving my game away by letting her believe I thought she was Elena as I kissed her long and hard. ”

Damon is tempted to pat himself on the back for a well-played lie: now, if Katherine tried to mock his stupidity in front of Stefan and Elena, it would sound less like the truth and more like one of her usual mind-fuckeries.

“You knew Katherine was probably responsible for whatever happened to Jonathan and Jeremy, and you kept it quiet?”

Stefan can feel the anger thrumming hot and hungry in his bloodstream and for one increasingly bloodthirsty minute all he wants is to behead his brother, to stake him, to tear his limbs apart. Not because he has kept a secret, but because he endangered Elena with his fucked up games….

Then it occurs to him that Damon would never let Katherine go so easily, and it’s like his veins are suddenly filled with ice. “You can’t possibly want her back after the way she humiliated you.”

“I want _revenge_.”

“Enough to leave Elena and her family in danger? I don’t believe it,” Stefan says, more rational now, the bloodlust receding. 

“You should,” Damon insists, shrugging, because being perceived as evil is still better than being perceived as a fool. Elena will forgive him eventually, as she did for Isobel and Caroline and everything else. Elena’s grudges against him last only as long as his actions’ consequences, and once Jeremy is returned to her, he’ll be able to pursue her again. Perhaps he’ll have an extra advantage as well if he plays the pity card well or plays a pivotal role in getting her problematic sibling on the recovery road. 

“You thought you were kissing Elena,” Stefan guesses, his stomach clenching at the thought. It doesn’t make sense because he already knew Damon wanted Elena. If he had no faith in Damon’s brotherly loyalty, how could he have the power to disappoint him? “I think you believed it was Elena all along until we found Jonathan dead.”

“Please, I’m perfectly able to tell the difference between my vampire ex and your human sweetheart.”

Nothing in Damon sounds or looks defensive, but Stefan goes with his gut feeling anyway, regardless of how unpleasant the reality thusly painted is. 

“You must be right,” Stefan snorts, shaking his head as his lips curl in a thin, bitter smirk, “If you loved anyone but yourself, you would know the difference.”

_ If you truly loved Elena _ \- Stefan holds back from adding- _you would never mistake her for anyone else. You would know each and every shifting nuance in her scent when she is angry, scared, sad, and even excited.You would know every movement of her hands, every turn of her lips. You would recognize her walk and the way she carries herself._ _If you saw a miracle in every gesture of hers, her resemblance to Katherine would be almost nothing. You would know the difference._

There’s no sense of victory to be found in having Damon looking silently after him as he walks away since Stefan barely notices.

At least when it was about Katherine, he could blame Damon’s ruthless single-mindedness on compulsion at first and on genuine love after. 

It’s not until he’s knocking on Elena’s door that the storm brewing inside his mind finally quiets. All it takes is seeing her there, hearing her soft-voiced ‘Hey’ as she stands aside to let him in.

Just like all it takes for her to see he’s troubled is a deeper look into his dark eyes.“What’s wrong?”

They sit on her bed, and he tells her everything. With every word he pronounces, the anger and the disappointment slowly burn away to nothing, leaving him empty. But only until her hands are threading through his hair and her arms are folding around his shoulders.

Her body heat envelops him soothingly while his palms run up and down her back, possessively keeping her as close as he can.“We never get a break, do we?” she sighs wistfully in his ear.

“You are not surprised.”

“Let’s just say that, with your brother, I’m learning to expect getting disappointed.”

Elena is almost shocked to hear herself say this because deep down she is so very furious for how callously Damon has disposed of Jonathan and for making everything so much harder than it needs to be, but she also knows it’s the truth. Damon is like a sleek, beautiful leopard: he can be mesmerizing to watch and he can like you enough to allow you the thrill of petting him, but you know he may turn on you for whatever reason at some point.

It’s easier to diminish her anger when Stefan’s hurt is so fresh, and he’s in her arms. She hurts for him and his disappointment more than she does for hers. 

Elena Gilbert has never been -admittedly- neither the most selfless nor the most selfish soul, but Stefan’s pain will always come first for her. It’s amazing and new and scary at the same time, but she wouldn’t give it up for the world. 

So why does she feel guilt flaring up in a dark, remote corner of her heart? 

\--

Stefan’s parting words stay with Damon longer than anyone of them might have supposed because in following days he keeps dreaming about the night he thought he was kissing Elena.

Sometimes in his dreams, he knows it’s Katherine right away **:** he rips her heart out of her chest after kissing her hello. Or fucks her roughly against the door before cradling her beautiful head in his hands and tearing it off her neck **,** with one swift and violent tug.

Other times it’s really Elena, sidestepping his kiss and sternly warning she loves Stefan **:** he cuts off her reprimands by snapping her neck in one furious, practiced motion. Or Elena gives in, looks at him with guilty longing in her eyes and kisses him back languidly…she’ll beg him to bite her next, and he’ll feel her go sweetly in his firm hold, rebelling only feebly.

It always ends with death, with him awaking hard and throbbing and full of angry appetite. Any search for Jeremy and Katherine he and Stefan have conducted has turned out fruitless so far, and this only makes his sleep more and more troubled. 

Damon likes pretending he doesn’t understand why, but he knows very well that there’s only so long he will be able to deny himself the truth. _Obsession is not love._

\--

Jeremy learns something new about being vampire every day, and with each passing day it seems more and more like his life from before is enveloped in a fog, like a dream or a nightmare so very distant from his present.

There are times he feels so numb that he even wonders if _he_ is real. He wonders if he really loved Anna or if she was just convenient, questions whether she’s worth staying with Katherine instead of simply leaving Mystic Falls behind once and for all. But then he remembers how Anna was the first real friend he has ever had, how she held on to him as the device hurt her, how girly she could be when she wasn’t trying to act badass.

Anna made him feel connected to the living world for the first time since his parents had died, whereas everything with Vicky had felt magnified and surreal like a hallucination induced by acid.

He’s certain that, at the very least, he loved – _still loves_ \- Anna as a cherished friend, and he remembers he had a fascination with the delicate, graceful curves of her body, the snow-like paleness of her skin. Had he not read somewhere that ‘Love is just friendship set on fire’?

Jeremy wants to be Anna’s hero, the first face her eyes see when she awakens to life again. He wants to see the joyful gratitude on her face as he tells her that he has given her mother back to her too. That’s what drives him to go on, and perhaps once he is done Anna will connect him to the world once more.

Until that day comes, the next best thing seems to be stalking Bonnie. Jeremy isn’t entirely sure why the action gave him such a reprieve, but since the night he and Katherine started his new habit (she had been teaching him the finer points of trailing and ambushing a prey), he has developed a fixation on it. It occasionally disturbs him how muchhe enjoys executing Katherine’s bidding, playing surveillance on Bonnie while remaining unseen, basking in her scent.

The witch wears the skin of his sister’s best friend, but he no longer sees her like that. The only thing Jeremy sees as he looks at her is a prey, and the more he follows her around, the more he sees her struggling with the feeling of being spied on, the more he longs for a kill. He pictures drinking her blood until the last drop, fangs aching to tear at her flesh, and he imagines it would be the last line to cross in destroying the boy he used to be.

It’s not compassion or remorse stopping him every time, but the knowledge that he needs Bonnie for whatever necromantic hocus pocus will return Anna to his kisses and hands.

\--

Bonnie met Samuel Garwain at her grandmother’s funeral when he introduced himself as one of her top students and assistant. They’ve kept in touch via email since then, and they’ve occasionally seen each other for lunch or coffee since she came back to Mystic Falls. He has long hair of the darkest brown, a tall and lean figure, and eyes dark and penetrating enough to rival Stefan’s; the coolest winged snake tattoo around his forearm, and he looks sexy without even trying. Yet her favorite thing about him is that their casual coffee dates are the one secret she can keep for herself, separated from the drama that touches the rest of her life. Seeing Sam is helping her redefine her version of ‘normal’, which might sound strange to anyone else, considering Sam is a druid with a weird interest for manga and Ufology. Yet having him to talk to has been providential in a time of her life she when she lost the one person who could guide her through her rediscovery of life as a witch. It doesn’t hurt that, given Sam’s older college student status, they can flirt a bit without aiming to make their friendship into something more. It’s like enjoying the best part of dating without the stress and the responsibilities that come with it. And at the same time, it’s stark evidence that having magical powers doesn’t mean being cut off from ordinary reality, but rather being privy to an extraordinary world. 

Tonight Bonnie and Sam are meeting by the ‘Moonshine,’ a downtown pub owned by his cousins, Gwen and Rowan. Bonnie feels like she’s stepping on a whole other planet every time she gets past the door.Witches hang frequently about the Moonshine both because it’s owned by witches and because Rowan sells mandrake roots and other rare magical ingredients under the counter, so the pub gives off a very homely vibe to her.

It’s a place where she might start a conversation like this one without feeling self-conscious:

“I think someone’s been stalking me.”

Sam puts down his beer and looks no less impassive than usual. “Do you still feel like you are being watched?”

Bonnie nods, cringing a little “It’s been getting worse. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch, and incidentally I get that feeling only at night.”

Sam’s cringe mirrors hers. “You are thinking about vampires.”

“Someone I used to know has been turned recently.”

“It sucks to be you, then.” Rowan pops up from behind them, gracelessly layingthe tray with Bonnie’ s ordered cider down. Her waist-long blond hair, streaked with purple locks almost hit Bonnie’ s face as the other witch decides to sit beside her, but the interruption is more amusing than bothering. The girl is such a hurricane of brute energy that it’s hard holding it against her. 

“Ever heard of respecting your customer’s privacy?”Sam reproaches his cousin with a low, dark tone.

It hardly dents Rowan’s over-board perkiness. “I own a _bar_ , doofus. People come here so their privacy can be invaded while I serve them massive quantities of alcohol. I probably know the darkest secrets of half the town.”

“Now, that’s a scary thought,” Bonnie chuckles. “All of that unsavory knowledge in your sneaky, freakishly-little hands.”

“Funny, Bennett,” Rowan snickers, rolling her eyes, “but if a bloodsucker has taken a shine to you, you better do something fast. Longer it goes on, worse the risk to your safety. It excites their predatory instinct, and a cocked up, fang-y maniac is a pain in the ass. Don’t wait until the leeches decide to draw the hunt closed: they get more unpredictable and sadistic, and you will get antsy. Draw the beast out and set it on fire before it gets it in its head to play with you.”

However Bonnie appreciates Rowan’s experience-proof advice and however little she likes vampires in general, it disturbs her more than a little that the older witch refers to them as ‘it’. There are a lot of negative comments she might bring up in reference to her history with vampires, but she wouldn’t accuse them of being ‘things’.

Not wanting to give Jeremy’s identity away, she chooses her next words with particular attention: “What if my blood is not what _it_ wants?”

“All more of a reason to strike first,” Rowan’s cerulean eyes are stormy as she leans toward her friend, “you let one of them exploit your powers, it won’t be long before others follow the example. You would never know any peace.” 

“She’s right,” Sam cuts in, the grim calmness in his warning making it harsher, “the last thing you need at this stage of your preparation is developing a reputation for associating with their kind.” 

“Okay, I’ll keep it in mind.” Bonnie nods and forces a smile. “Let’s talk about something else now. I need to be cheered up.”

The druid smirks a little at that request and points with a tilt of his head at the pixie-ish, rail-thin blonde behind the counter, transparently flirting with a customer. “Just let Rowan spill the beans on Gwen’s latest accident in potion-making.” 

Poor Gwen has a twisted, relentless passion for inventing potion recipes for basically anything that pops in her brain. The sad consequence is that she is continuously involved in very _colorful_ experiments. The story Sam is hinting at must be good because Rowan’s expression loses every trace of belligerence at its mention. 

“Hasn’t my cousin told you anything _yet_? I almost _died_! I swear that girl is a menace!”

\--

Bonnie’s good mood over her night expires somewhere between the moment she gets out of the Moonshine and the moment she reaches her car in the parking lot. 

Somehow she has managed to put aside the vampire drama that comes with being Elena’s best friend for one hour or so, dancing with her friends and laughing at Gwen’s stories and Sam’s dry jokes and Rowan’s rough handling of a drunk customer who just would not stop hitting on her.

She felt so relaxed, for the first time in a whole week. Then as soon she is out and the foreboding sensation of being watched swoops on her again, she is tempted to simply dismiss it.

Then Rowan’s warning replays in her head, and she remains standing beside her car, fingers playing with her keys as her inner senses reach out to locate the threat. After all, if she has to confront her stalker, there’s probably no better place than outside of a pub swarming with other witches. 

“I know you are here somewhere,” she raises her voice tentatively, sounding tougher than she feels, “I can sense you” 

The only response she receives is a faint echo of her voice in the empty parking lot, and for one full minute she keeps standing still and feeling extremely silly, if a little relieved. Then a familiar frame emerges from the shadows to swagger toward her.

Jeremy’s face, when she’s finally able to get a good look at it, is utterly emotionless.

“Hello, Jer. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“I know. I didn’t want to be found.”

“Jenna and Elena are out of their minds with worry,” Bonnie half-cajoles and half-reproaches.

It seems to elicit a humorless grin from Jeremy’s pale lips. “Ah, Jenna. I noticed that Alaric is doing wonders to comfort her. Those two should be thanking me. If I had not turned, who knows how long dear auntie would be lied to? It kind of makes her look stupid when the entire family lives in a world she suspects nothing of. ”

Swallowing her uneasiness down, Bonnie wants to suggest that he goes over to the Salvatores, or to defend Elena’s past secrecy concerning her vampires, but some misgiving she can’t pinpoint stops her. “Why have you been watching me?” is all she demands.

Jeremy’s eyelids droop half-closed as he focuses on her accelerating heartbeat, the hunger inside him spiking so high he can almost taste the blood in his mouth. “Out of everyone I knew, you feel the most different to me now.” 

“That’s not an answer.”

The boy’s grin becomes thinner, feral. “No, it’s not.”

“Are you hunting me?” she can’t avoid sounding slightly incredulous. This is supposed to be the same Jeremy who intruded on hers and Elena’s chick-flick nights, so how is it possible that she has become just food to him?

“I don’t know, but,” Jeremy drifts off and shakes his head, confused, hungry beyond belief. That edge of fear in between her heartbeats is intoxicating, addictive. He suddenly _needs_ to have more of it.

“I know you may think this is the only life you can have, but there are other ways to be a vampire. Better ways that would allow keeping your family, a resemblance of normality. Stefan would be glad to help you.”

“I bet,” he chuckles, “but he cannot give me what I want. I wanted this for myself, and I don’t regret it.”

“It was a very hard year for you,” the witch speaks gently, keeping her tones low and soothing like she is trying to calm a wild horse because the way Jeremy is coming forward has something subtly threatening about it, “but you always had a kind heart. You might have chosen to become a vampire, but you would have never chosen to be murderer.”

“It’s not like I see it anymore,” he shrugs and tilts his head aside and leans against her car, seemingly enjoying how their nearness makes her increasingly jittery. “You like your meat, and you don’t feel guilty about all the chickens and cows whose life was cut short.”

“It’s different.”

“It’s not, but it’s a typically human trait to get hypocritical only because you are not on the top of the alimentary chain.”

“Death can be easy for the people who go,” Bonnie interjects, striving to stay collected and to not provoke him with any sudden movements while ready to react if he attacked her, “but you should know it’s not as easy for those who stay. Every person you kill had a family, friends, coworkers. Ending a life will never be like cutting short a string. It sows a pain you should know better than anyone else.”

“Shut up!” Jeremy snarls, eyes flashing black, “My life is not material for a motivational speech!”

“You’re only angry because you know I’m right. Think about-”

That’s when he jumps forward, ready to latch on her, but Bonnie is more than prepared for it. His body meets an invisible obstacle right away in a telekinetic force that pushes him backwards hard, deflecting his impetus so he glides through the air and falls a few feet away.

Bonnie gets inside her car and speeds promptly away. 

****AN: You can picture my Original Guest Star Sam Garwain as a long-haired Jason Bher, and rest assured that no Sam/Bonnie romance is in the works. I hope you like him as much I do. Also, I imagine Rowan as Kristen Bell and her little sister Gwen as Taylor Momsen.**  
 **

** **** **


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elena and Bonnie have a much necessary chat, Katherine has a plan, Bonnie and Damon reach one more breaking point.

  


** CHAPTER 4 **

It’s been a long time since the last time Elena and Bonnie shared her bed, silently curled beside each other listening to the sounds of an empty house. After the ‘briefing session’ Bonnie held with Stefan and Alaric, they went with Damon to search the outskirts around the Moonshine for Jeremy’s trail. 

Laying down here with her best friend, the witch can’t avoid remembering last summer, those first few days after the funeral when nothing seemed able to get Elena to leave the bed, and Bonnie would hold her hands and squeeze them in hers while she cried, because words felt fake in certain circumstances.

The witch feels restless, intensely aware of the differences between now and then. The silence only makes the recent distance between her and her childhood friend palpable. Maybe it’s the natural backlash of all that has occurred in the days leading up to Founders Day, or maybe they are just no longer the same people they used to be, but for a moment Bonnie wishes she could go back to when all she knew was a life as Elena’s sidekick, so to speak. It was a simpler life, and she always felt more at ease when taking care of those she loved. 

_‘You are just a naturally nurturing soul,_ ’ Grams used to say, ‘ _It’s a good quality to have, but don’t let others take advantage of it.’_

Bonnie had not cared then: since her parents divorced and her mother moved out of town, progressively but leisurely disappearing from her life, her world had gravitated around Elena and Caroline. And if people had started to label her Elena Gilbert’s Shadow or Caroline’s ‘Nice’ Shoulder, it had not mattered because popularity for her was a commodity, not expected as it was for Elena nor fundamental as it was for Caroline. Just like it didn’t matter if boys who entered her orbit soon leaned toward her two more attention-prone friends, because Bonnie never felt the heat as intensely.

It was easy because neither Elena nor Caroline ever got in the way of something Bonnie _really_ wanted. But this was before she learnt who she truly was. Everything feels different now, because she has finally found her place in the world. Although accepting themselves is something that everyone experiences at some point in their life, she never expected it was going to separate her so irreversibly from everyone she knew. 

“Do you think they will find him?”

“I hope so,” Bonnie answers just as absently as Elena asked. 

“I’m really sorry about what happened. You must have been terrified.”

The uncertainty under the forced calm in Elena’s voice is new too. Elena never used to be hesitant about talking to her about anything. 

Bonnie recognizes that she probably _should_ have been terrified by Jeremy’s attack the way she had been months ago when Damon nearly killed her in one of his temper tantrums. In reality, the two situations didn’t even compare. From the moment Jeremy started advancing on her, the fear had receded under the surface, giving over to a sense of controlled coldness. Every inch of her body and every glimmer of her Power had been preparing to defend and attack, so there was little space for terror and helplessness. There’s no way she would be able to put this in words for anyone regardless, so she just shrugs. 

“It’s not like you asked your brother to make me his dinner.”

“I feel responsible anyway. I’m always dragging you in my messes lately, and I know you don’t like it, but you’ve been my best friend since forever and I don’t want this to change because you hate vampires.”

There’s a hint of reproach in that last sentence that has Bonnie’s gaze hardening. “I don’t _hate_ them. I just don’t forget how it is when you aren’t on their good side.”

Suddenly looking every bit as guilty as she feels, Elena reaches out to squeeze her hands, her expression faintly pleading. “I get that I was lucky on that front, especially when compared to you. I just …don’t want to argue and lose you too, but I love Stefan and I can’t even imagine this ever changing.” 

“I can distrust _them_ and be happy that you’re happy at the same time, Elena,” Bonnie sighs but Elena still frowns a little.

“Even if it’s with a vampire?”

“Even if it’s with two vampires,” the witch smirks lightly, enjoying her own sassiness.

“It’s not like that,” the other girl huffs, rolling on her stomach. “Damon is Stefan’s _brother_.”

“Unfortunately.”

Elena chuckles at her friend’s dry tone, but still feels like she should marginally defend the other Salvatore brother: “He is kind of my friend as well.”

“In whatever capacity a narcissistic sociopath in a hurry to get inside your bed is capable of being disinterestedly a friend.”

“Bonnie!”

“I’m just calling it as I see it.”

There‘s a pause thick with expectation. Bonnie doesn’t entirely understand why until the other girl averts her gaze and asks: “Do you think I’m leading him on?”

The witch sighs softly and thinks hard about how she is supposed to answer _that_. She doesn’t want to sound too harsh, regardless of her personal loathings.

“I think that being close friends with someone who’s publicly set on pursuing you gives off the wrong impression.”

“But-”

Bonnie doesn’t give Elena the time to justify herself. This is the last conversation she wants them having, but since it seems unavoidable she will at least aim to get it over with fast. 

“It’s a lot like what you do with Matt. You care for him, and you don’t mean to string him along or to interfere in his relationship with Caroline. But you don’t want to lose him either, so you still give him enough to let him hope for more.”

“I have a lot of history with Matt. He’s like family; I can’t just …cut him out. Even Stefan understands that.”

“I _do_ understand it too. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt him on purpose. Still, it would be easier for him to move on if you kept your distance for a while.So he can…get used to the idea of you not being there. Learn to lean on other people. You can’t just take what the two of you used to have and make it platonic.”

Elena frowns, a slight pout on her lips, and for one full minute it seems like she’ll say something to defend herself. Then Bonnie sees something in her features shift to convey understanding, acceptance, and a hint of surrender. It’s comforting that even standing on opposite sides of the fence, they can still get each other so well. Even with all their differences and their leaning toward opposite journeys, Bonnie doesn’t think she would be able to stand it if her surrogate sister became a stranger to her.

“So do you think I should avoid any time alone with Damon too?”

Bonnie rolls her eyes automatically, suddenly feeling very laconic. “While I don’t care in the slightest for his feelings and I kinda think he deserves to be endlessly strung along, it’s probably better.”

“Oh.”

They both pretend there’s no echo of disappointment in Elena’s tone. It’s easier that way. 

\---

Jeremy’s eyes are wary as he follows Katherine’s movements as she glides gracefully across the room looking for their remote control. Her show of generous forgivingness doesn’t convince him at all. 

“So, you aren’t angry at all?”

“I get it, little Gilbert: you were hungry; the witch was too close; the witch got you too angry.”

Turning around, she throws him a fiendish, cutting grin that sends shivers along his spine. “You’re a newbie; it was bound to happen.”

“You _wanted_ it to happen?”

“I _hoped_. Otherwise you would have a stake through your heart already.”

“Why? I thought we needed her.”

Katherine turns her back on him again, busying herself with her cell phone, but her voice promises all kinds of misfortunes as she answers him.“We need her on edge. You’ll stay under the radar for some time. and then you get to have fun and stalk her again. Happy?”

“I would be happier if you told me what _you_ will be doing in the meantime.”

“Stay smart and mind your business.”

By now, Jeremy knows better than reminding her that her plan _is_ his business.

On the other side of Mystic Falls, Gwen Garwain is laughing, having ice cream with her ‘normal’ friends. She gets distracted from the conversation around her when her cell vibrates in her pocket, signaling a received text message. 

It reads, _‘She’s ready. Give the book to her.’_ __

Gwen’s mascara-rimmed azure eyes grow troubled for a few seconds before she blinks the revulsion away. A deal is a deal, and she has her family’s safety to think of first.

\--

When Stefan and Alaric return to the Gilbert household, they find Jenna, Elena, and Bonnie quietly drinking tea in the kitchen. Stefan’s unwaveringly serious visage says Jeremy is still AWOL even before Alaric verbally acknowledges that they found no trace of the boy anywhere. It’s when her history teacher surrounds Jenna’s shoulders with his arm and Elena leans toward her boyfriend with her soul in her eyes that Bonnie decides it’s time for her to go.

She doesn’t exactly miss a boyfriend what with all the issues she has to deal with, but sometimes she wonders how it would be, feeling your knees going weak and your heart speeding up in that rush of a new romance, having someone who puts you first. If she thinks of that palpable devotion that materializes between Stefan and Elena with barely a glance, she concedes it would be nice having something like this for herself someday. Well, vampire drama aside.

For now, she shall deal with her own drama by herself.

Which, among other things, means finding Damon Salvatore outside, standing on Elena’s porch, arms crossed before his chest and still as a statue.

It’s the usual strategy: she walks on and ignores him, without sparing him one further glance in the hope he bestows the same courtesy.

It’s a vain hope since his footsteps follow in her wake until her car.

“Did you want something?” she breathes out in annoyance, surrendering to the inevitable, glaring at his smug face. 

“You are not a very polite witch, Bonnie Bennett.” Damon’s tone is just as smug as his expression. 

“And you care because?”

“With Katherine on a rampage, I would think you would be nicer to those who can protect you.”

“Last time you offered me protection from a psycho,” she scoffs frostily, “you ended up lunging for my throat. Excuse me for not counting too much on you.”

Her referring to Emily as a madwoman stretches his lips in a genuinely amused grin that he can’t fight.

“I wasn’t offering anything _yet_.”

_“Did you want something?”_ Bonnie repeats,more exasperated, unable to summon the will to go in endless circles for his entertainment’s sake.

“We need a truce, for _Elena’s sake,_ ” he spells it out for her like the last two words were a sort of magical formula to get anything out of her, and Bonnie is so fucking tired of everybody thinking this. Perhaps it’s why the sudden urge to be vicious is so overpowering.

“You must really enjoy being passed over in Stefan’s favor again and again. _What would Katherine think?_ ”

She doesn’t need to specify that his sire must think him more stupid than he was a century ago or that Elena tells her _everything_ : he can read between lines well enough. 

It gives her a certain satisfaction, seeing every pretense of friendliness leave those unfairly attractive, pale features.The icy fury flashing behind his gaze awakes something inside her, an awareness very different from what she felt with Jeremy in that empty parking lot. 

It’s an echo of the resentment she has buried deep down, and she is darkly happy that she can give one of the sources of that resentment at least a figment of her displeasure. 

“Don’t get too cocky, Little Witch. Like it or not, you and me will be seeing lots of each other in the near future. And I can make it extremely unpleasant.”

The menace threading his tone doesn’t even faze her, and Damon wonders why her attitude doesn’t anger him as much as it should. He doesn’t generally like being opposed, but under the irritation, _with her_ , he likes this dance of verbal punches. It quite satisfies him that he needs to sweat a little to bring Bonnie Bennett down a notch.

He even likes the proud way she leans back against her car and arches her eyebrow, the cold heat behind her words as she ensures: “You already do.”

The vampire smirks slowly, a cruel anticipation surging through his senses as he leans forward, braces himself against the car’s roof to entrap her smaller figure between him and the door. Her breathing pattern barely changes, her heartbeat speeds up only for a few second before it reverts back to normal, but all along her green eyes hold his with a steely, calm determination.

Damon loves it so much that his fingers are almost reverent as they reach out to play with the ends of her dark locks. “You can hate vampires all you want, sweetie,” he whispers silkily, breathing in her scent with all-consuming relish, “but in the end we both know that you resent yourself so much more than you do me or Stefan.”

Her warm palms splay on his chest, uselessly pushing back while her gaze narrows on his. “Really?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about your sneaky, troublesome kind is that you are inborn energy conduits. You know as well as I do that the spell could not have killed your grannie unless she was already dying.”

Fisting the cloth of his shirt instinctively, Bonnie glares at him more harshly, angry indignation spilling in every line of her body and every nuance of her voice like it is a living, burning thing: 

“Do you think that makes it better? Takes some of the blame off of you? One more day of her life was worth more than the century you spent mourning for that whore like a rabid little bitch.”

Despite her clear intent of insult him, her harshness sends a wave of warmth through every fiber of his being. Damon wants to kill the girl, break her; let her pull him apart.He is bathing in her loathing, her breath, her smell.There’s no real reason he should enjoy it so much, but he craves it even more than he hates it.

His next reply grazes her skin like a freezing caress, mellifluous but plainly malevolent. “It kills you doesn’t it? Admit it: you feel like you chose us over her and you can’t stand it.”

It’s mesmerizing, the way her face transforms under the impact of his insinuation: her strength shatters, her eyes grow fixed and glassy while an endearing fragility suspends itself over her features. But even now he can see her stubborn will to stay frozen, strong, unflinching under his scrutiny. To fight tooth and nail to keep his accusation from sinking in even though it’s the truth. At that moment Bonnie looks so beautifully broken that the predator in Damon hungers to take her, to push her further and see how much prodding her defenses can stand. 

That’s not all he feels. A protective urge throbs underneath everything else, greedy for recognition, and all of a sudden, the only thing he wants to do is get rid of her hurt.

“It just proves what a silly little bird you truly are,” the vampire forces himself to huff, mildly disoriented, “the old witch made her choices and you made yours. It’s not like her ghost is gonna make you pay.”

Her gaze is unfocused on some point beyond his shoulder, in the distance, when Damon steps back from her. He feels unsettled, dazed by the imaginary imprint her touch has left on his skin. 

“One of these days, I’ll set your sadistic ass on fire.” Bonnie shakes her head, still not looking at him.Threateningwithout any real bite.

Damon is not sure of the reason he stays rooted in his spot until after her car is gone. Or whether he should be satisfied of his face-to-face with the young witch or not. 

  



	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katherine’s perverse plans reap their first fruits and everyone else just tries to keep themselves afloat. Bonnie may or may not be heading down a dangerous path, and Damon is the one to notice.

**CHAPTER  5**   
  
  
Last thing Bonnie Bennett expected, when she returned home after ‘one of her longest days ever’ (a term she uses and redefines more and more often lately), was discovering her friend and fellow witch Gwen Garwain chatting on the porch with her father. Gwen’s blonde-white mane, split in two long tails, shines in the sunset’s orange light as much as her pearly smile.

Her father leaves them alone after the bare minimum of polite conversation and then Gwen’s friendly expression shifts to a more business-like one. It’s pretty much a given that this is not a courtesy visit: they’d never met outside Moonshine before. “I have something for you,” Gwen explains, rummaging through her handbag, “I found it the other day while reorganizing the family library. I thought it could be useful to you, given your last adventures.”

The volume Bonnie takes in her hands has a lucid red leather cover and its pages aren’t yellowed by time or use, but she can tell it’s ancient all the same. Magic hums awake at her touch when her fingers run along the cover. Incantations probably preserve the book from wearing.

“Wow,” she sighs, awed. “This looks so precious; I don’t think I can borrow it.”

The pixie-ish blonde shakes her head, easily dismissing her concerns “Most witches have the chance to develop their raw power from childhood, and yours runs much deeper than mine or Rowan’s. This will be more useful in your hands than in ours, believe me. I would feel awfully guilty if I didn’t offer it.” 

Bonnie would insist if it wouldn’t be stupid to refuse a help she so needs. She flips through the pages eagerly. ‘The Necromicron’ has awhole detailed tail section on Necromancy, an introductive first part about exercises on awaking the darker, primal core of a witch’s power, a middle section on offensive spells, mind-control and shape-shifting. Grams would have never allowed her to even _look_ at a book with so much dangerous stuff.

“Most of these spells are Black Magic. I don’t know if I’m ready to even understand the basics. ”

“With the amount of power you have, you need training at a faster pace, ” Gwen warns while Bonnie struggles with both a greedy curiosity and a troubled conscience.

The book and its tempting well of knowledge are _beautiful_ –no other word for them in her mind- but also not tools for a beginner like herself. 

“I’m not taking it back,” Gwen decides for her and it’s the first wholly sincere thing the blonde girl has uttered in the entire conversation. Just the idea of having this book hidden in her closet, since the instant Katherine forced her to take it in her custody, made her nervous. And if Bonnie refuses it, there’s just no telling what the perverse leech will do. Gwen is not so cocky to think that she and her family might hold their own against such an ancient, ruthless vampire. Unlike her sister, she is not stubborn enough to try just to spare her pride. The Garwain line has not survived this long by taking sides in disputes that didn’t directly concern it.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Then don’t. Take it, study it hard and let’s not talk about it ever again until you don’t need it anymore.”

Hiding behind her sunny façade, Gwen silently wishes good luck to the last Bennett heir. 

\---

The following weeks are nerve-fraying but superficially uneventful.

Katherine and Jeremy never show up, and no summoning spell seems to work on them: this leads Stefan to conclude that powerful magic must be at play, protecting both of them, and therefore they are probably associating. Which is ill-promising to an extent no member of their group wants to admit out loud.

Jenna often finds dead cats and dogs with their necks broken on the porch by early morning: it’s Katherine’s warm reminder that she can get in anytime she wants. Alaric and Stefan have become permanent guests at Elena’s house, sleeping and eating there until ‘the situation’ is resolved. Damon and Bonnie are frequently there as well, but not any more often than strictly necessary. Bonnie is feverishly studying over her Necromicron, and Damon splits his time between handling the Sheriff Department and searching for Katherine.

Obviously the local ‘animal attacks’ are back with a new flourish, but the police don’t suspect vampires at all. The victims may be drained, but their corpses are so badly mangled than it’s a hard task to determine whether the blood loss is simply an after effect of dismemberment rather than the cause of those deaths.Werewolves begin to be suspected as the guilty party, and, for awhile, Stefan and Damon take a breath of relief.

Then Bonnie begins to dream of Tyler, rounded up, pleading for his life and swearing his innocence. There’s no way to warn him without endangering the Salvatore’s secrets, no time to devise a plan that takes the general suspicions away from him. How could it be? It’s Carol Lockwood turning him in as soon the Sheriff cautiously voices the word ‘wolf.’ 

Bonnie is idling around the Salvatore boarding house with Elena and Stefan. Elena had dragged her there of course in yet another ‘covert’ attempt to get her best friend and her boyfriend to be more familiar with each other. Bonnie was twisting her mouth, trying to decide if she should just play along so Elena would leave her alone when Damon walked in with the news.

Hearing about Tyler being put down like an animal leaves the two human girls unable to breathe. They exchange horrified glances that hint to endless other evenings of a lifetime ago, when it was only Bonnie, Elena, Matt, and Tyler hanging all over the town, feeling like adolescence would last forever. 

Once upon a time they would lean on each other, but now there’s Stefan to gather Elena in his arms, so the girl can press her cheek against his chest, closing her eyes, shutting the rest of the world out. Bonnie looks down to the floor, not quite knowing what to do with herself, and for merely a moment the most peculiar feeling crawls over her. It’s like she’s suspended in a dark place between present and future, and not alone.

She is caught in this unshakable, alien certainty that this is how it will _always_ be: Bonnie and Damon, Stefan and Elena, hating and loving and living, _together_. 

The witch shivers violently and looks up to discover Damon watching her, looking more impenetrable than usual.

“She is the real monster. How can you do something like that to your own son? He _trusted_ her and she just handed him away like he wasn’t …part of her.” 

If there’s one thing Bonnie was taught to hold sacred above all others, it’s family. That Carol Lockwood has turned on her only son so easily and ruthlessly is inconceivable to her, although she has always thought of the woman as a major bitch. She’s a little surprised that Damon shares the sentiment, because she didn’t really anticipate any response from him.

He shrugs, a crease of aversion on his lips. “I imagine she thought it as her chance to regain some of her dignity. Years spent getting humiliated by one man, and she didn’t even suspect he was a werewolf until their son came to her crying for help.” 

“What I don’t understand,” Elena breaks in, “is why Katherine would bother framing him.”

All those bodies, the flesh ripped from the bones and the torn apart limbs.This is the one explanation Katherine wanted the Council to have.

“To prove that the control we have on this town is one she _allows_ us to have,” Stefan answers bitterly, his fingers gently fisting her chestnut locks. “To let us know she can tear down our carefully built covers any time she wishes to, without even needing to show herself.”

Damon darts a look to his younger brother as he says that, faintly surprised that the other vampire is not looking straight back at him. Although it’s not really necessary: they both remember very clearly that this is a modus operandi Damon has systematically pulled on Stefan every few decades or so.

Damon feels a bit disconcerted at the disgust he feels for his similarity to the woman he once swore to love eternally. Somehow, seeing that disgust reflected on Bonnie and Elena’s pretty features makes it worse.

It’s not that Katherine made him the way he is today. It’s that he wanted to _be her_ , back in those days when she played with his life and everybody else’s he knew like it was no big deal. In his human eyes, the vixen was a goddess, unmerciful and incomparably strong, extraordinarily beautiful. In a world where women did and said solely what they were taught to, or valued nothing but their virtue, Katherine had stood out like a mirage, all the more alluring for her dangerousness and promiscuity. 

He had not only wanted her, her beautiful body, her black soul, and her frigid heart. He had wanted to _become her_.Talk about a wish he had realized quite easily among all his other failures. 

When he had loved her, he had been proud of seeing his life sculpted to her unholy image: she was his very personal god. 

But now that he knows after all the fawning and the worshipping, he can’t even tell her apart from her human double, he just feels dirty.

Underneath his skin, inside his bloodstream, Katherine is a taint he can’t seem to ever cleanse. He thought Elena would do that for him, every day he believed it more. She would have dug out the man inside the vampire and undid Katherine’s claim. But she avoids being alone with him lately, for whatever short time, bringing up excuses about ‘priorities’ and ‘being fair’ when questioned about it.

Nevermind that Damon doesn’t need or care about Elena being fair to him: all he wanted was a way out of this obsession of finding Katherine, punishing her, torturing a few answers out of her, and forcing her to regret _something_. 

The thought hammers his mind constantly: he loathes that hating Katherine is hardly different from loving her.The hatred, the love- it’s all the same empty, devouring fever.

He sees Alaric with Jenna; takes in that spring-like sense of rebirth and second chances that _emanates_ pathetically from the other man whenever he is in the same room as Elena’s aunt.

He observes how Elena’s support fills Stefan up.

Damon doesn’t understand how, even in this situation, everyone but him somehow found their sliver of sky. While _he_ keeps fighting the tide pulling him downward, spiraling deeper toward rock bottom, out of control. 

The irony is laughable, really. 

He is nearly grateful for having Bonnie Bennett around in the face of all of this mushiness. The witch is fast becoming his personal stress-relief valve.Alaric calls what they do ‘juvenile bickering’, but Damon has lived long enough to learn that, under duress, the most meaningless patterns can become a lifeline.

Much like him, Bonnie is meant to get through this game as a lone player: this is possibly why he is the only one who notices the subtle changes in her nowadays, the way she is there and not quite there for Elena at the same time. Somehow the witch is learning to play her cards and keep her moves to herself despite her fierce determination to protect Elena and Jenna. Damon wants to know the hows and whys, dissect her motives until they make sense. Bonnie is not Emily: there’s such a fire inside her, dormant under the practical, balanced appearance, but lately there are places where differences and similarities overlap. Emily’s Power made her unflinching in front of any horror, unlikely to show any outward emotion other than a fleeting, distant amusement, her demeanor a bit remote like she was constantly lending her ear to otherworldly presences.

Most of the time, Emilylooked more inhuman than Katherine, and Katherine herself used to find it humorous that Damon was more freaked out by her handmaiden than he was by her. 

Bonnie is the diametrical opposite to her ancestor. Whether she is being kind to her friends or unkind to her enemies, she is fully into it, vibrant and alive at every instant. Even at her most calm and composed moment, her gaze reflects a searing intensity.

Yet some days, Bonnie looks exactly like Emily to him. It’s the way her eyelids droop half-closed while conversation floats around her and no one else realizes she is no longer entirely participative. The manner her expression goes suddenly blank, her eyes secretive, the manner she carries herself, like she is always perfectly safe despite the supposed evidenceof the contrary. The way she moves and walks like she’s a queen (it looked uncanny on Emily, on Bonnie it’s strangely sensual). 

Stefan will occasionally glance at the witch like he suspects something is off, but he has not been around her kind as often as Damon, in his long quest to rescue their maker. Damon knows it’s not normal, how fast Bonnie’s Power is maturing. He understands that the little dreamy smile that sets on her lips when there’s no reason for it means she is just a bit high on It. 

So he watches her, eager to find out where this new twist is leading to, too morbidly intrigued to interfere although deep inside he’s hitching to expose her transgressions in front of everyone.He can taste it so badly some days, the need to drag her down her high horse. 

“I’ve yet to meet her, and I’m already charmed,” Bonnie simpers, sarcastic, bringing a slight smile to his mouth. There’s something about her caustic type of wit that quite improves his mood. 

“At least you don’t need to count on _her_ for your brother’s safety,” Elena cringes, bitter. It’s clear it’s eating away at her, knowing that Jeremy’s life lies in Katherine’s hands. 

“I suppose there will be a funeral,” the witch adds, shaking her head, disgusted. After Grams and Vicky, she hoped their quota was officially filled up for this year. She is sick of attiring herself in black and saying her goodbyes. She is sick of omissions that feel like lies and lies that feel like crimes, especially when she thinks of Matt, of how much he has lost and how it was supposed to be Matt and Tyler, Bonnie and Elena forever. 

It hits her hard that with Tyler goes such a large, irretrievable piece of her old life. There’ll be no going back to the past. 

She knows the wild rage simmering inside at the thought is not entirely hers. Black Magic reaches deep in her blood now, melting all darker, deeper emotions in one heady and violent pyre. Even now, she feels all-powerful, one step closer to that state of ecstatic wonderment that comes with heavier spells. Magic mourns her loss right along with her heart, transfiguring her pain in something beautiful, a black and addictive fury that knows neither forgiveness nor mercy.It fortifies her, and for that alone she’s grateful.

“ _Every one_ of us will need to go,” Damon warns, with a pointed, arctic glance to her. “We can’t afford arising suspicions of any kind right now.”

What he means is that the Council is still on alert. Bonnie needs to forcibly stomp down that new side of herself that wants to tempt luck and claim her revenge: the desire to squish every single bigot Council member like an insect only because she _can_ and Tyler, for all his flaws, deserved better than what he received.

Grams used to warn her about associating too much with other supernaturals. Emily paid a too high price for her life style choices, but also set a dangerous taint on the Bennett name. Bonnie used to understand that warning, but now it feels ridiculous that she should fear judgment from the likes of _Carol Lockwood_.

_ Goddess, I want to curse her, to strike her with a fever that will consume her mind until she grows mad, a raving and drooling bitch no one will even stand to look at anymore… _ _ _

Bonnie ends that trail of thought before the image becomes too vivid, too tempting to resist. She has to believe she is better than this. Better than _them_ , the vampires and the Council alike.

There are lines that she will not ever cross, lines addictive as the rush of having infinite possibilities at her disposal can be .

\--

The Tyler Lockwood funeral is a quiet, subdued affair, which is a major contrast to the usual Lockwood style, but it proves a bare minimum of decency. Carol Lockwood looks strangely withdrawn, lost in her thoughts over the course of the entire ceremony. The Sheriff and Damon sit close to her while the priest delivers his pretty speech, whereas Bonnie plays numb in between Caroline and Matt, and Stefan and Elena. Matt’s knuckles are white as he squeezes Caroline’s hand, but the blonde girl doesn’t complain, just leans her head on his shoulder without speaking or looking at her boyfriend.

In front of them, Bonnie feels like a liar. She can’t even stand to look at the Salvatores or Elena without feeling like this is somehow all their fault.Reason invites her to remember that throwing the blame around is as useless as it’s wrong, but the falsity of everything around her still chokes her.

So, after the mass, she chooses to take an early exit. 

Which, obviously, doesn’t go unnoticed by her personal incarnation of Hellish Torment. 

“I thought we all agreed on playacting nice and sympathetic, not standoffish and ready to run.”

Damon is behind her, his hand shutting her car’s door before she can get in. “Playacting is more your thing than mine.” She glares at him, all the more upset because he always stands too close to her, like he is not happy unless his threats and breath brush on her face. “And quit chasing after me every time I leave a room!”

Non-pulsed, he rolls his eyes at her slight exaggeration. “Stop making your exits at the wrong time.” 

“I bet the right time is whenever _you_ decide.” 

Her smirk is nothing short of mocking and glacial, and he mirrors it right back. “Since I’m the one with all the common sense, it goes without saying.”

“Move away!” Bonnie snaps, green eyes flashing in a way that makes Damon’s smirk widen and his gut tighten.

“Trouble controlling your temper, witch?” 

There’s something in the manner he says it that has a bell singing in foreboding in the back of her mind.He looks too satisfied with himself, like the proverbial cat that has just swallowed the canary. 

“Yes,” she answers tightly, lowering her tone to a harsh whisper, “and it’ll be in everyone’s best interestsif I get out of here before things begin to explode…beginning with your egomaniacal head!”

Looking positively delighted, Damon just leans further forward, tilting his head so he’s once more invading her personal space, regardless of her attempts to put more distance between their bodies. His nose nearly brushes her forehead, much to her discomfort. “I _love_ it when you get aggressive.To think you always struck me as such a mild-tempered, cool-headed kind of girl…” the vampire trails off, making it sound like an insult. Bonnie might even swear that the blue of his irises heats in response to the hardening of her expression, which goes from reflecting anger to plain dislike. She _hates_ it when he turns conversation into a slideshow of subtle sexual allusions.

“But look at you, now. I might wonder why you’re so edgy and temperamental lately,” he continues, as it becomes apparent that she won’t give him anything but a cold shoulder. 

“Or you might mind your business,” Bonnie cuts him off, without too much success.

“ _As I was saying_ ,” he continued, “I _might_ wonder, if I couldn’t spot signs of Black Magic abuse a mile away.” 

There’s a short pause where Damon quite enjoys his little victory and the stony glare he receives as reward for it. But Bonnie doesn’t deny or beg for his silence, contrary to all his expectations. 

“Give the Dead Boy a cookie,” she merely sneers, sugary-sweet with a hint of boredom. “Is there a point you’re waiting to make?”

_ Has he no other way to kill his time than picking on me and fawning over the Elena/Katherine combo? - _ she wonders, trying hard to not allow him to exasperate her. 

Finally, the vampire pulls back, not bothering to hold in a sigh of disappointment. “Let’s just say I don’t want a Dark Arts junkie on my hands when I can’t enjoy it. Have you and Stefan made a pinky promise to only unravel whenever bigger issues are at play?”

Bonnie catches herself just before she smiles. Damon’s antics and clever lines will _not_ beamusing _ever_ , no matter the circumstance or the subject. Instead, she makes a show of rolling her eyes upward like she is annoyed. Which she _was_ just a moment ago. 

“My God, you caught us: we scheduled all our nervous breakdowns to happen during big events from here to the next three years just so you won’t have time to gloat over any of them.” 

Her tone is so flat and dry as she says it that he can’t avoid admiring her style a little. 

“Stefan _would_.”

“I think you’re confusing him once again with someone who resembles _you_.”

“You are funny when you are _not_ trying to be _. Anyway,_ ”he clears his throat, giving himself an air of importance and the stance of someone to not be trifled with, “I just wanted to let you know I’ll be keeping an eye on you, just to be sure you don’t get in over your head. I want you saintly and sane until bad old Katherine is out of my hair.”

“Your so called concern is unwarranted,” she deadpans, trying to sound serious without being too hostile or sarcastic about it, “I‘m experimenting a little, but I’m handling it. I got the after-effects under control.”

“Good because if you can’t handle yourself, then I shall do it for you. I would hate having any magical outbursts of yours interfering with my next diabolical master plan.”

Obviously, Damon’s only worry over other people’s missteps is related to whether they will bring unwanted attention on him. Bonnie can’t believe she is stuck listening to his bully-ish, spoiled brat orations _once again._ How had Stefan put up with it for more than a century?

“Do you never get tired of that Prince Lestat attitude? Because frankly I’m certain that everyone else already has.”

Damon looks her over with newfound respect at that last annoyed barb. He never pegged the little witch for someone who read Anne Rice. Apparently even cheerleaders can spare a few surprises in Mystic Falls. 

“I think this is the nicest thing you _ever_ said to me, Bon-Bon.”

Strangely, it may well be the truth.

“ _Whatever, Damon. Can I go now?_ ”

“Since you asked so nicely, honey…” With a smolderingly innocent, sparkly-eyed grin, the exasperating vampire fluidly moves away from the door he was fully leaning into, making it accessible to her. “I’ll be seeing you around.” 

“Not if I see you first,” she grumbles under her breath once she is inside her car, uncaring that her persecutor can hear her perfectly well. She just couldn’t let him have the last word, especially since he called her _‘honey’_ with his last word. 

He struts back to the church conceding to himself that that sharp tongue of hers could be diverting when it didn’t grate on his nerves. 

  


  


 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katherine decides to finally meet Elena and Bonnie- separately-, running into Damon along the way. The aftermath is not pleasant for anyone but her, and maybe Jeremy.

   

**CHAPTER 6**

The last place Elena Gilbert would expect to meet her sadly infamous ancestor, Katherine Pierce, is her backyard. Stefan is inside her house with Jenna- she would just need to raise her voice a little and he would hear her.

She stays quiet and still instead, utterly mesmerized by the dark reflection of her image, standing merely a foot away from her. Somewhere inside her mind, Elena had fooled herself into thinking the resemblance between them had been less pronounced than portraits and memories suggested. That surely it was impossible that two women shared the same face, the same build, the same voice without being twins. That is _not_ natural. 

But now there’s no denying that Katherine Pierce is her perfect double, at least physically. The other woman – no, the vampire – smiles with a twist to her lips that manages to be bothcoquettish and malicious, tilting her head aside before turning around, like sheexpectsthat Elena will follow in her wake.

It makes no sense at all, but at that moment, Elena does want to comply. There’s something majestic about the way Katherine moves: she simply owns the space around her, like she is not walking, but gliding over the ground, gracefully but somehow aggressively.

Elena’s feet start moving quickly even while her features twist in a mask of confusion. Katherine terrifies her more than anyone else she has met, and last thing she needs is to be alone with her. Katherine is a threat to everyone she loves. Katherine is…despicable, for what she has done to Damon and Stefan and anything she is doing to Jeremy. So why is her mind so befuddled, so eager to cave and please?

“My coffee has been laced with vervain for weeks,” she spat, trying to break the haze, walking almost shoulder to shoulder with her rival now.

Katherine’s dark eyes glitter with amusement. “I was not even thinking about biting you, my dear girl. I won’t even snap your neck. ”

“Where’s my brother?” 

“Wherever he wants to be, I suppose. He’s certainly not anywhere around here.” 

“We know he must be with you. I want him back home,” Elena bits out, sounding more desperate than she expected to, but still hoping that Katherine will offer an opening for negotiation, or set grounds for some Damon-like blackmailing. It doesn’t happen. Katherine stops walking and looks straight in her eyes with a certain amused disinterest.

“ _I_ want Stefan in my bed, all warm-blooded and willing and defenseless, but that doesn’t mean those days aren’t gone.”

It’s nearly too much, the off-handed, thick with fond remembrancetone with which the vampire refers to the way she repeatedly violated Stefan’s mind and heart. It’s nearly impossible to not react violently.

For the first time, Elena understands what it means to really hate someone. But what can she do with all that hatred other than choke it down and put up with Katherine? Her mortality mocked her.

“Don’t play with me. You’re here because you want something. Tell me what it is.” 

Katherine’s falsely demure smile widens in a devious smirk, just as beautiful as Damon’s imitation of it. It chills Elena to the bone.

“I was just testing a theory.” The singsong to Katherine’s voice is melodious but cold, a threat covered with velvet. 

“A theory?” Elena echoes, skeptic, fleetingly wondering if Stefan has already noticed her absence. If he will reach her before it’s too late. 

“Why are _you_ here with _me_ , Elena?” 

“Jeremy.” 

The answer is simple, easy, automatic, firm. It’s also a lie. 

Katherine’s gaze lights up like she knows it. “You are here because I wanted it, and because you wanted to _please_ me, just like everyone else usually strive to please _you_.” 

Elena wants to deny it, but she can’t, so she chooses to stay hostilely silent. She is also desperate to not hear whatever her ancestor will tell next, whether it is a truth or a lie, a threat or a compromise. She would give anything to have Stefan behind her now, keeping her from feeling so exposed and uncertain. 

“We are exactly the same.” Katherine’s cool fingertips dust over her cheek and Elena finally flinches, stepping back, her features a mask of proud disgust.

“Only on the outside.” 

“The outside is all it takes,” her double remarks, pleased, dismissing the intended insult all too easily. “This face, this body, this voice…they are perfectly identical, almost like you were cloned from a drop of my blood. You can’t be so stupid to believe it’s natural. ” 

“What are you saying?” Elena frowns, although she knows she can’t trust this vampire nor does she want to believe one word out of her mouth.

“I’m sharing a family secret,” Katherine leans forward, conspiratorially. “That child I had, your direct ancestor, I had not given birth to him when I was human.” 

“ You want me to believe that vampires can procreate?” 

Elena’s faintly disguised incredulity seems to only please her further. “It‘s an extremely rare occurrence, but there are a few cases reported throughout history. You should ask your witch friend; she might research for you …although I would advise against that. I don’t think the truth would have a healthy effect on your friendship, and witches are handy to have around.” 

Elena tightens her mouth, determined to not listen to anything else and find a way to go. She won’t let a sadistic bitch get off on insinuating anything bad about her relationship with Bonnie or anyone else she loves. Katherine has already caused enough damage. 

“I don’t believe anything you say.” And before she can turn to go, a fist is closed around her wrist, holding her back forcefully. 

“You don’t need to believe _me_. Deep down, you know what you are. It’s why you were so drawn to Stefan and Damon since the first glance. Why you feel this pull to satisfy me. You must have wondered about what was so special about you that everyone wanted to be around you. Every human male you met was keen on either fucking you or protecting you. Sometimes both, I bet. Every human girl you kept around felt inferior. My son was exactly the same way. I couldn’t bring him anywhere without having everyone fawning all over him. I got tired of it _really_ fast….What about your flawless complexion, that air of grace about you, the natural magnetism youcan work onweaker vampires as well?You inherited those traits from me. You know it’s true. ”

For two full minutes, neither girl nor woman blinked or moved. Elena felt like she was barely breathing. 

“This son you say you had…was he human?”

Almost gently, Katherine releases her iron grip on her human descendent, shrugging with a careless, feline elegance.

“He was _mortal_ ,” her feral grin feels to Elena just as mocking as her choice of words. “The Church had a name for those useless little demons like him. I think it was…’ _Lamiae_ ’” 

Katherine swaggers backwards and out of sight with a feeling not too unlike giddiness in her cold heart, not bothering to glance back to check if the human girl’s blank expression had changed.

_ Sometimes truth can serve you just as well as the most well-crafted lie- _ she thinks, satisfied- _It was almost too easy. Work on the weakest ring for a bit, and even the strongest chain will break. Little Elena, so fragile to my attacks despite all the protection she has. Once she falls, so will Damon and Stefan. Maybe they will even tear each other apart like last time…and then Emily’s heir will be ready for me. God, how I_ love _this plan._

Dividi et conquera: it must be the oldest strategy in the world, and the most effective. 

The idea of destroying and twisting so many lives in a carefully orchestrated chain reaction excites her more than anything has in ages. By the time Katherine meets Jeremy, she has worked herself in an anticipation-induced frenzy. Her good mood is so apparent that even her young ‘apprentice’ notices easily. He doesn’t question her, even when she links her arm with his and nuzzles his throat contentedly.

“How do you feel about introducing Bonnie to me, now?” she purrs against his cheek, and the mercurialflashing of his brown eyes to ink-black is a valid compensation for the indulgence she has conceded to him so far. Her boy is a fast learner.

\---

Elena strides back to her house ramming a mantra in between her jumbled thoughts: _‘Stefan loves me and I love him and our love is real. Katherine just wanted to manipulate me.’_

When Stefan’s worried gaze meets hers and he asks where she’s been, that he was looking for her all around the house, she knows she should talk, tell him everything.

But Stefan is her whole world and without him she would be just half-a-person. She can’t stand the idea of him hating her. How is she supposed to tell him that perhaps the most precious thing they have is all due to Katherine’s blood thrumming in her veins? 

Just the thought that she might have raped his feelings the same way Katherine had so long ago makes her _sick._ She feels dirty, tainted. Stefan had been adamant about ensuring that he never influenced her choices or her emotions with his vampire abilities since the very beginning of their relationship….

If he doubted his feelings ever being genuine, how could he look at her the same again?

Before she can make a conscious decision to, Elena’s lips curls in a tired, painfully wide grin.

“I’m sorry. I just needed some fresh air. Stupid of me considering the situation, I know. ”

How she hates herself for that lie.

When his arms wrap around her waist, she convinces herself that she will tell him tomorrow. Right now she only needs to _feel_ him, lips to lips, every inch of his skin pressing on hers. She has never felt as real as she does when he is touching her. How could it be just about magic? You cannot ‘magic’ a love like this into existence.

She trusts her heart. It’s Stefan’s she can’t risk.

\--

By now, Bonnie believed she was used to having her routine disrupted by random vampire attacks aimed at her person. She was wrong.

There are fears you can never entirely vanquish or reduce. She learns this lesson by doing something as simple as stepping in her little kitchen, already greeting her father.He is supposed to let her cook an Iranian dinner today. Since Bonnie loves ethnic cuisine as much as her father distrusts it, it’s not a frequent occurrence that she manages to convince him to try any new flavors.

Her joyful expression falls as soon she gets on the kitchen’s threshold and notices they have guests: Jeremy has a smug smirk plastered on his mouth, and his _sister_ is standing right behind her father. Close enough to snap his neck or tear his throat out in a blink. That’s what Katherine’s Mona Lisa smile promises.

The witch squeezes her grocery bag to her breast so hard that her knuckles lose color, and she misses her father’s greeting above the blood rushing to her ears.

All her witchcraft progress is utterly useless now in front of _this_.

“Bonnie, you should sit!” Jeremy pipes up and something in his tone has her father turning to give the younger boy an assessing, probing glance. Sean Bennett is a man of excellent instincts regardless of his elative ignorance of what is happening. Katherine glares at Jeremy for either speaking out of turn or drawing Sean’s attention, her expression dark. Feeling on the edge of a potential disaster, Bonnie strives to control her rising panic and to look as ‘normal’ and serene as she can. 

Sean’s gaze travels from Jeremy to his daughter, calm but not exactly pleased, picking that something is off but passing off the current tension to common teenager angst. Her father hasn’t liked Jeremy since his recent reputation as a junkie so it stands to reason that he would be attentive.

“Elena,” Bonnie’s grin unfurls slowly, detached and fixed, but her voice is at least steady, if a bit too perky. “Have I forgotten we were supposed to meet?”

Hopefully, playing along with the charade will keep the vampires in check. 

“Oh, no,” Katherine answers, leaning slightly closer to the older Bennett, “I just needed to borrow you a moment. Your dad was so nice, inviting us to stay for dinner, but I told him we couldn’t stay.” 

Clutching tighter at her grocery bag as a nearly overwhelming wave of anger begs her to fuck all pretenses and just react, Bonnie merely blinks at the smoothly pronounced provocation, going close to immobile because otherwise she doesn’t know what she might do.

“Why don’t we go upstairs to my room to talk?” the witch suggests, trying to not come across as too eager.

“Sure,” Katherine nods, looking eerily alike to her descendant for the first time since Bonnie laid her eyes on her. “Jeremy can wait here for me, can’t you, little brother? And no tasting,” she adds playfully, wagging her finger. 

“I’ll resist,” the other vampire responds, studying Bonnie’s reaction with ill-disguised enjoyment.

She doesn’t recognize anything in him besides his looks: he is as distant from the kid she grew up around as Katherine is from his sister.

“What are you doing here, Katherine?” Bonnie whispers as they go up the stairs. 

“Proving to you that I can be a generous friend to Emily’s last living kin unless you make it otherwise.”

The implication is that, while Katherine can be lenient now, for whatever sick reason, and spare her dad, it will be very easy for her to remedy should she ever be displeased.

Normally, Bonnie would be refusing to fold, returning threat for threat, but with Jeremy so close to her dad, she needs to be more diplomatic than that.

“Unless I make it otherwise? In other words, you want me to use my powers for you.” 

“Oh, no,” Katherine interjects, looking gleefully innocent. “I just don’t want you using them for the Salvatores’ benefit. I’m here with a peace offering: you stay out of my business and I will stay out of yours.”

“I won’t let you hurt Elena,” Bonnie replies before she can think better of it.

“Please,” the vampire scoffs, rolling her eyes and shaking her head with condescension, “that washed up clone is nowhere near as interesting as I thought she was going to be after speaking with her mother. I probably shouldn’t be too surprised. Isobel was the same: entertaining for those first five minutes and then as dully pathetic a vampire as she was a human. Stay neutral, Bonnie. What do you care if I play with my boys for a while? You don’t seem very fond of them. ”

Katherine sits on her bed, looking up at Bonnie expectantly. The witch wraps her arms around her herself, not liking the turn the conversation has taken and expecting it can only worsen: “If I ask you why you are visiting this town, will you answer?” 

Katherine smirks, shattering any resemblance to her descendent to appear much like a carbon copy of Damon on his cockiest day. “I would think it would be obvious by now. I’m not a complicated person, darling. My life is all about fun and games.”

So basically, Bonnie’s current choices feature either letting Katherine freely enjoy her psychological torture of anyone the vampire feels like, or putting her father at risk. No need to say she is not happy with either possibility, but it’s not like she can afford to argue with her guests right now. 

“What do you expect me to say?” 

“I expect you to weigh your options carefully. I’m too old to fear your tricks and I can destroy you and all you hold dear. I’m only giving you this opportunity out of respect for my friendship with Emily. We had fun, she and I, traveling all over the country. I had her back and she had mine. Can you even say the same about our little Elena? She didn’t even warn you that vamps were real until you had one of them sinking his fangs into your tender flesh. It must have stung, that she went spilling your secrets to her boytoy instead of just giving you the truth. Emily would never let me get away with that. ” 

“I’m not anything like her.” 

“Obviously.” 

Funny how one snotty word can express so much condescension.

“You allowed her to be burned at the stake,” Bonnie feels bound to remark. 

“She betrayed me,” Katherine replies coldly, for the first time utterly sincere, “She deserved to burn.” 

Katherine gets up to her feet, sighing before continuing her speech.

“I’m not particularly interested in ending my bloodline or yours right now. Perhaps that will change, perhaps not. Anyway, you should smarten up and consider whether your BBF’s happy mood is worth having your daddy tortured and killed. I don’t have to necessarily be your enemy Bonnie Bennett, so don’t make me into one.” 

One moment Bonnie is staring into frigid, empty brown eyes, and the next instant there’s only a vacant space before her. Downstairs, she can hear ‘Elena’s’ voice jollily calling out for Jeremy and biding goodbye to her father. 

She rushes down the stairs regardless, anxious to see personally that Jeremy did no damage. 

\--

“I don’t get why you haven’t talked to her about Anna and Pearl already,” Jeremy scowls as soon as he and Katherine are a few feet out of the Bennett house.

Katherine ignores him, preferring to voice her assessment of the situation: “Dark Magic should be feeding her darker emotions. She is not affected enough to be useful, for now: we were inside her home, threatening her daddyand she still held her instinct to attack us in check. We need to push her more.”

Jeremy’s brows furrow as he realizes that the true purpose of their visit wasn’tto advocate their cause but to test Bonnie’ s control and the toll her recent studies are taking on her. It’s brilliant, but he would really like that Katherine explained this sort of stuff beforehand instead of simply expecting him to follow her directives blindly, guessing her motivations all the time.

“How?”

But before Katherine can even consider answering him, her senses put her on alert. She grabs his forearm and squeezes it hard while her eyes wander around and then up to the sky, telling him silently to quit the subject until she has identified the threat. 

A crow caws in distance.

“Go ahead. I’ll see you around the block in awhile,” she orders, and he obeys with a nod.

Katherine lingers behind, waiting. She isn’t disappointed. 

“Playing around with children now? I didn’t think it was like you, but then I never knew you all that well.” 

Damon’s voice is thick with bitterness, and she would criticize his inability to dissimulate his emotions, despite all her lessons, if his weakness was not so flattering. “Quite the contrary, love. I remember we knew each other so _intimately_. Didn’t we use to spend hours getting better acquainted with each other? It was so good. ” 

Damon’s beautiful visage is hardened in a mask of frigid anger. Katherine is nearly temped to reach out and touch it, just to see how he would react, to prove to both of them that he would be still as eager for her lips the way he was for Elena’s. 

“Evidently not good enough to get you to keep your promises,” he snarls, his eyes more vividly blue than usual.

How did she dare call him ‘love’ after all he had done for her, and the way she had betrayed him? How did she dare stand there, so close to him, looking completely unaffected by their time apart?

Damon hated her, and he hated himself for having let her humiliate him like that. He hates even more that he is still allowing her to make a fool out of him, but he can’t pretend her abandonment meant nothing. 

“Oh, don’t pretend I didn’t give you exactly what you wanted. We had fun before you and your brother became too sloppy and jealous to be good company.” Katherine’s singsong is smooth, laced with indifference.

It turns his anger to loathing and suddenly he doesn’t understand how he could have loved her so damn desperately. This woman has no loyalty and no respect, not for him or anyone else but herself.

“Do you think spending an eternity fighting to save you and avenge you was what I wanted?” 

“You wanted an excuse to set the world on fire and watch it burn, and tear your perfect little brother down from his pedestal along the way. I set you free.” 

“I wanted _you,_ ” Damon seethes, hating himself all the more for that admission, but unwilling to believe that his sire is dismissing all she has been to him with some half-assed Doctor Phil crap.

“Just like you want my good twin now?” Katherine giggles, circling him like a shark does its prey. “Sweet. You must be so proud of yourself. ” 

Damon shakes off her insinuation angrily, telling himself that the two situations were wholly different. “I don’t know what you want with her, but it stops now. You‘ll stay away from Elena and her witch-”

The bitch doesn’t let him finish, her gaze suddenly brimming with mirth.

“ _Her_ witch? From the way you’ve been stalking under her window lately, flying around her house just to guard her from _me_ , I assumed your interest was a bit more personal. ”

Damon clenches his fists, a dark fury fluttering under his features. “I was waiting for you to make your move. I knew you would seek her out at some point.”

His reasons aren’t entirely as straightforward as he professes.Admittedly, he has been concerned about Bonnie’s recent dabbling in black mojo too, but in the back of his mind lies the real reason for his watchfulness over Bonnie. The reason he became so defensive over Katherine’s last insinuation.

Bonnie Bennett is his dirty little secret, the shame-filled fantasy he occasionally indulges in because he is positive it will never be realized. Everyone else will fold to his will –whether it’s because of his looks and charm, his bullying or manipulative skills, but not _she_.

Elena hands over her forgiveness, her empathy, and her understanding, but the witch is _full of fire_ and so _pure,_ in every way he has ever defined that word. _Of course_ this appeals to him. He wants to preserve that purity as much as he wants to corrupt it.

To have Katherine bringing his meaningless transgressions up, regardless, is _unacceptable_.

Although, naturally, his sire doesn’t get it. She purses her glossed lips in a pout and flutters her eyelashes like she is some delicate dame, not a back-stabbing whore. The lack of decency he once found so enthralling now only twists his stomach in disgust. That feeling is a disappointment too. He used to be so fucking _certain_ that he would love nobody but her for as long as he existed. 

“Everybody wants what they are most adamantly denied, Damon, and for those like you and me this is even truer. You’ve changed so little.” 

Katherine almost sounds nostalgic, but he stops himself right before hoping it means anything. He would like to believe that he had not been so blind to imagine affection where there was none at all. He would like nothing better than to believe his love was more than a joke to her at some point in their history, but he knows better now. 

“I’ve changed enough to want you gone. Permanently.”

Katherine’s features harden imperceptibly, but it’s enough to turn her expression from amused to coolly solemn. 

“You can try, _love,_ but if I was in your shoes I’d stick to the wishes you have at least a slim chance at realizing.”

“You always thought too highly of yourself.” 

“We’ll see” 

They exchange humorless, challenging smirks and then Damon surprises himself: he doesn’t stop her from leaving. He has ached for this meeting since he died, and today he couldn’t wait for it to be over. 

It’s like seeing Katherine again has robbed him of every feeling he had left, painting even his crush for Elena as a shallow, ridiculous consolation prize. 

He can still see the shape of the Bennett house in the distance, and his mind goes to the girl who must be hiding inside, smarting up from her encounter with their common enemy.

**** His body starts to shapeshift with no warning, his wings rising upward, toward the sky, toward the roof of the witch’s house. ** **

****

****** **

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	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

Bonnie doesn't enjoy her much awaited dinner with her dad. Which is a shame because he works afterhours often ever since the divorce and they have precious few chances to spend quality time together. Regardless of how proud she is of her mother for ditching her previous teaching post and pursuing her dreams, unfortunately a beginning career as a Jazz musician is not quite the best source of economic stability.

Bonnie is very grateful to her father for never letting the situation weigh on her, and it makes her feel so guilty that she can't put aside everything else and give him the break he deserves.

The meeting with Katherine has her stomach in knots, and just forcing the food they cooked down her throat takes effort. It doesn't matter how much she tries to disconnect her brain, Katherine's threat hovers in between her thoughts.

It makes the guilt worse that her dad eyes the way she picks at her food and looks more subdued, even striving to compliment her goulash before flat-out advising that she stops pretending she is not tired and call it a night.

Bonnie surrenders to his cajoling without a fight and retires to her bedroom somberly, set on consulting her books for appropriate protection spells. She will even get on that CD her mother mailed to her last month- there's soothing quality about the mournful intensity of the saxophone's sound that she could truly use right now. Perhaps it's just that listening to her mother's music makes her feel like the woman is in the room with her.

It's a meager comfort that, at least, her mother is someone Katherine won't be able to get to.

Since no part of her night went how it was supposed to, it should not come as a surprise to her when her senses pick up a familiar presence as soon as she closes her bedroom door.

It's not the first time she has sensed him hovering around her home. She knows Damon has maintained his 'promise' to keep an eye on her, but usually the vibes he sends off are barely an echo of his soul essence: what she senses now is stronger, almost like an imprint lingering in the air, whose source is too easily localized. Maybe it's her emotions sharpening her intuition, or maybe it's because of how upset he is now. She always seems to feel him more strongly when his feelings are closer to the surface. Realizing how attuned to Damon she has become startles her, because she can't say she is able to sense Stefan in the same manner.

Any other day, Bonnie would pretend she doesn't know she is being spied upon: after all, Damon doesn't terrify her anymore, and why should she care about how he wastes his time? There's a minor, resentfully acknowledged figment of her, that is relieved of being under careful watch, even if it was Damon doing the watching, or perhaps exactly because it was him, and not someone with any scruples. The idea of losing control of the entire situation scares her, and it' been helpful knowing that if the worst ever happened there was someone who would recognize the signs and help her retain that control.

How do you go from being resentful of someone's very existence to feeling safe with your sanity in his blood-stained hands?

Bonnie doesn't even pretend to understandable her life's small ironies, but she still goes to her window, shaking her head in disbelief. The large crow lands on the window's sill and caws, shameless.

"Quiet," she mutters, conflicted between her need to truly talk with somebody –anybody, apparently- and the very rational certainty that she's going to regret it in the morning.

The witch ends up uttering, with a defeated sigh, an incantation to soundproof her walls. A silvery dusted smog shapes a small vortex in her open palm before penetrating the vertical surfaces of her room.

Only then does she open the windows, nearly smiling because the crow is titling his head to regard her in a manner that can only be defined as suspicious.

"Come in."

The bird jumps on her floor and looks around quickly like he expects some unknown force to materialize and attack him from all directions.

What he doesn't expect is a flash of pale grey fur rushing madly from under her bed and getting his nasty claws into his feathered body.

Bonnie is too surprised to react, and Damon must to be too, since it takes him a full minute to come back to his human shape.

"Finn! Get off him!" the witch cries out as the cat keeps wrapping around the vampire's arm. Damon looks down at the small animal, stunned, trying to shake the pest off without killing it.

 _I should just fling the stupid beast at the wall_ \- he reflects, then he remembers that Bonnie hasn't always had a pet. Finn was actually Sheila's cat before the woman passed away, so it wouldn't be _diplomatic_ to even injure the animal.

Fortunately vampires have a high pain threshold, but having small claws deep in your arms, regardless, is not pleasant.

"Damon if you hurt him, I swear-"

"Are you blind, witch? _It_ is trying to eat _me!_ "

"Well, now you know how your victims felt!"

Despite her stern tone, Bonnie hurries to grab her feline and peel him off the visiting vampire, who cradles his bleeding arm in disbelief. Finn calms down considerably within his mistress's soothing embrace, although he doesn't much like to be held, by habit.

"I can't believe I was ambushed by a fucking _cat_ ," Damon mumbles, indignant, causing the girl by his side to erupt in peals of hysterical laughter.

Finn mewls in protest and slinks out of her arms to hide under the bed again. Damon glares after his retreating back, still unwilling to accept this happened to _him_ , now and here, when it has not happened in a century of successful and _dignified_ shape-shifting.

Bonnie's continuing giggles soon distract him: admittedly, the situation in itself is rather ironic and funny, but that's no excuse to appreciate it so freely.

"Sorry," she says, covering her widely smiling mouth with her fingers, "it must be a nervous reaction."

He supposes it might well be true: Katherine is not easy on anyone's nerves.

Yet, when Bonnie manages to get her body's reactions under control and hold her face straight again, Damon is surprisingly dissatisfied with her neutral expression. She looked brighter and softer just a moment ago – he much preferred it to her usual pinched appearance whenever they were arguing.

Putting aside the random observation and taking out the irritation it has arisen on the hiding cat, he glances back to the spot _it_ disappeared off to, a stubborn scowl expressing all his disapproval.

"Is it even safe to allow that _psycho_ anywhere close to your bed?"

To think of how the little witch allows that miniature _monster_ to sleep curled over her covers has him inwardly shuddering.

Bonnie presses her mouth together and shakes her head like she's holding in her laughter _again_ , but much to his relief, when she talks to him she manages to keep her composure.

"I let _yo_ u in," she reminds him.

Wicked and undeservingly attractive, his answering grin bares white, human teeth in one additional mockery.

"Do you think it was a _smart_ idea?"

"Probably, since my dad has already welcomed your ex and Jeremy to our house."

However the invitation may have surprised them both, she feels better knowing he will be able to get in as easily as Katherine can should necessity arise.

The mere mention of his ex-lover suffices to erase from Damon's visage any traces of humor."I saw the little bitch getting out of here. What does she want with you? Besides recruiting you, as that's already obvious."

Bonnie shakes her head, denying his suspicions as she picks up the furry nuisance that is pocking his head out from under her bed to rub his moist nose against her legs, seeking to draw her attention away from their 'guest'.

"Actually, the one thing she has demanded from me is that I remained neutral."

"That's out of character," Damon observes, narrowing his gaze on her like this could force the truth out of her. Bonnie doesn't allow his suspicion to shake her, cradling Finn closer to her breast and continuing to stroke his fur in slow, rhythmic strokes that help her to both simulate an air of self-possession in the vampire's eyes and to soothe her mood.

"I thought it was strange too," she concedes, holding her chin high, "have you spoken to her?"

Damon nods, cool-eyed and unflinching. "There was a fair share of ineffective threatening involved, on both sides."

"No chances of cute, evil reconciliations in sight?" she questions, studying him intently and wondering if she will ever be able to really read him.

"I have not even _considered_ it."

"Really?"

"She is not what I had made her to be in my mind," he shrugs, his voice acquiring a pensive quality, "I remembered her like this charmingly unique vixen, but what I saw today was only a disloyal, frigid whore. I wasted enough of my time on her. I want her dead and finished."

Bonnie is momentarily startled that _Damon Salvatore_ is confiding so openly in her of all people. Then she remembers he doesn't really have anyone to talk to, after Elena took her distance from him, and hiding his twisted feelings for Katherine has never been his priority anyway.

And although pity is the last feeling she wants to have for him, a tiny, guilty twinge of pity is exactly what she feels. It's a silent, unwilling betrayal of Grams and Caroline, but she can't help slightly empathizing with his disappointment. In Katherine, she has felt no room for love, only greed and a hunger to dominate. To try gaining her affection and her trust could only have been like trying to squeeze water out of a rock.

"I guess I will have to take your word on that."

"If you hadn't already chosen to trust me, witch, you wouldn't have invited me in your room."

"You are the lesser evil," she admits, nodding.

"Imagine that." He smiles at her, thinly but genuinely, and for some senseless reason Bonnie's lips curl upward to mirror the gesture.

All too willing to dispel the unwanted bridge forming between her and her once-attempted-murderer the witch hurries to change subject: "what did you think about Jeremy?"

"Jeremy? He wasn't around for very long."

"Have you even _tried_ to talk him?"

"No."

By the way he says it, it's quite obvious that Damon hadn't even spared a single thought for the newborn vampire until Bonnie brought him up. Which doesn't meet her approval, judging by the annoyed roll of her eyes.

"Did you?" he accuses right back, disturbed by this sudden urge to defend his actions.

"I didn't have the chance to, but I don't think it would have made much difference. It's like Katherine has completely brainwashed him into her personal, unquestioning lapdog. Which is weird, because Jeremy has never been afraid to think with his head, even when this made him hostile or unpopular. "

"Katherine has that effect on people," Damon observes dismissively, not particularly eager to focus on that part of the equation.

"So how do we get through to him?"

"We don't."

"Excuse me?"

"We kill Katherine and once she is gone, Jeremy will be out of a centre. We can work on containing him then. If he becomes a threat before that, we react accordingly."

Damon sounds so certain, like Elena's well-being or reactions are no concerns of his. Bonnie doesn't pretend to understand whether he is simulating or not, but she certainly wishes it was that simple for her.

"Katherine has more or less promised to not hurt Elena if I don't do anything to help you or your brother. She has to have something big planned for you two if she is looking for an insurance policy."

"I wouldn't put much stock in her promises if I were you. Even if Stefan might advise to go with the tide, delusional little martyr that he is, he'll be even more glad to the point of sheer stupidity for the slimmest chance to keep his ladylove out of the line of fire."

"I won't take Katherine at face value, and I'm not giving her a say on my choices. I only need to figure out a way to protect my dad from her."

"I hate to break this to you, but dearest Kat was very capable of getting to him even without the added privilege of entering your house."

"I have Emily's grimoire, I can spell his wrist-watch to be like Alaric's ring."

"So poor Sean can be the next Jonathan Gilbert?"

"Have you anything _constructive_ to say?"

"Get your old man detoxified of all that vervain, and then I can compel him to take a much deserved, long vacation to, let's say, London or Paris or some other far away cliché. Until further notice," Damon huffs, looking at her with all the smug pride of someone who is sure of receiving the soundest thank you of all his life.

Bonnie finds, reluctantly, that his idea has a lot of merit. Emily's ring magic is very complex and not easy to replicate for a newbie. If she could summon Jonathan's ring back to her and bewitch it to look like a trinket Katherine can't recognize, it would still be a risk.

"I'll think about it."

It's all that she can afford conceding for now, but it's still helpful, knowing she has one more option. Although it places her father's future in Damon's hands.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Elena tries to gather information on her origins all on her own, Bonnie and Jeremy reach their breaking point and Damon is called to exercise an old talent of his. Dark themes alert.

 

**Three Days Later**

Skin sliding against skin, curves pressed against angles as mouths meet halfway in a needful heat: Elena feels like she is born anew. There's nothing quite like being with Stefan, even when lust has been sated and they just lie in her bed, legs and hands entwined, her sweat an oddly sensual contrast to the cool dryness of his marble skin. Her eyelids drift shut, her cheek resting on his chest as his lips brush her forehead tenderly and his fingers comb her brown locks behind her earlobe. This is her Heaven. Or it would be, if not for the ugly suspicions intruding again among her thoughts.

Once upon a time, being Elena Gilbert meant being the perfect girl with the perfect family and the perfect boyfriend- except that perfection was never meant to last: her family history turned out to be full of dark secrets, her loner brother has now become someone who hates her, Matt is someone she no longer needs, and Bonnie is someone who no longer needs _her_.

What she and Stefan have has made up for every negative change she's experienced. It was bad enough when she believed his feelings were spurred by her likeness to Katherine, and it still stings when she thinks he first got interested in her because he wanted to see if she was anything like Katherine. It used to console her that at least his feelings for her ancestor wasn't genuine, but now…it's all gone. She can't rest, knowing she might have vampiric blood running through her veins, poisoning every concept she used to have about herself, coloring every past memory.

Suddenly, it's like Elena Gilbert doesn't exist at all. Was she really this 'creature' who attracts and deceives without wanting to, a Lamia? Her friends, Matt, Stefan, Damon, her parents – did they love her because of herself, or because her nature confounded their minds? Was anything in her past as real as she had naturally thought?

Damon had told her, once, that Isobel had tasted different to him. More alluring than the average human.

And Isobel herself was attracted to the supernatural world. She had been so convinced that she belonged there that she left her husband to embrace vampirism.

Does any of that mean something?

Elena wants to say 'no' but her unnatural resemblance to Katherine Pierce mocks that wish. There are just too many little oddities at play to ignore.

"What are you thinking?" Stefan asks softly, stroking her hair in slow, soothing motions.

Elena wets her lips before lying, surprised to realize that the longer she keeps her doubts to herself, the more smoothly every lie comes.

"Do you know how Jeremy used to research vampire lore from all over the world? I was rummaging through his computer files the other day. There was something about demons called Lamiae. I was wondering if they are, you know… _real._ Like vampires, and ghosts, and witches, and werewolves, and every other legend I thought was pure superstition."

Stefan chuckles, although she gets the impression he is not all that amused. "This was a year stuffed full of revelations for you, huh?"

"You can say that."

There's a pause of thick, easy silence before she prods him again, covering her restlessness with a cheerful smile. "So? Are they real too? "

Stefan smiles back at her, causing a burning cut of remorse deep in her heart. "To be honest, I don't know for certain. I don't think so. Lexi used to say they are a lot like the vampire version of a metropolitan legend. Humans who are born from a vampire bloodline, Mortals with vampire powers… they've been rumored to exist for centuries, yet no one of our kind has ever claimed to meet one in person. "

"You sound like you believe it's all rubbish."

"It probably is. If vampires were truly capable of procreating, they would know for certain by now."

Hearing him say this lifts a weight off her shoulders, although it probably shouldn't. All the same, Stefan's opinion will always be worth a lot more than some nasty bitch's offensive insinuations.

"I love how your forehead wrinkles when I'm being silly and you try humor me and take me seriously," she teases, stretching above him and reaching for his lips.

"I always take you seriously."

"Liar." Elena giggles, kissing him again.

* * *

It's been a while since Bonnie had her last 'girls night out' with her fellow cheerleaders, so Caroline has basically threatened her to not skip this one. Bonnie doesn't really regret caving in: regardless of how little she likes certain teammates of hers, spending more Matt-less time with Caroline is nice.

Fruity drinks at the Mystic Grill, gossip and some dancing have made for an especially, unusually mundane night and the hours sped by their little group with unexpected easiness. All in all, the witch is surprised by how much she enjoyed herself.

She parts from the other girls with a wide grin on her glossed lips, humming the last tune they danced to while she heads to her car.

Her joyful mood fades quickly into alarm as she strides through the deserted street and hears footsteps echoing in the dark in her wake. She speeds up her pace and those footsteps keep up with her, she stops and they stop along with her.

Concerned, Bonnie taps into her sixth sense to visualize her unwanted company: it locates four presences, all average human males. Narrowing her focus, the witch reaches out to get a feel of their intentions, fiddling with her purse in order to not give her current preoccupation away. She is not prepared for the assault of violent images that invade her mind at once, or for the sensation of grime crawling all over her skin under her clothes. She can see it all, what they mean to do to her, she can see herself through their hungry eyes, and it disgusts her. She closes her eyes against the wave of filthy desires that soil her hyperaware flesh, tries to not feel the imprint of hands on her arms, holding her still while other hands undress her roughly.

She tries even harder to dismiss everything and even out her breathing.

_I can handle this. I studied to handle this. They are only humans. I can get rid of them easily._ –she repeats as a mantra, but it's a thin, flimsy defense against the mounting panic. Her feet are frozen in place as the footsteps grow louder, closer, and her tongue feels huge and wooden inside her mouth.

Taking a deep breath in, Bonnie concentrates her willpower to project a thick veil of energy around her frame, meaning to use it to blend in the darkness and become unnoticeable. But her heartbeat is a deafening distraction and her concentration keeps faltering and slipping under the pressure of those ugly images, undermining her confidence.

When she opens her eyes again, she knows it's too late to move away.

The four men surrounding her are well-dressed and their faces young and clean: they don't look like rapists, she decides, swallowing down the knot in her throat, but not her fear.

The terror spreads to every part of her, growing and roaring until it melts into something else. As soon as the first arm stretches to grab her, something explodes at the very bottom of her soul.

It's like a beast is twisting underneath the surface of her skin, her power howling with rage and indignation. She understands, in a moment of fleeting sanity that she might still stop it, contain the scorching heat before it does what she was unable to. She chooses to give in instead, allows the fury inside to lash out and destroy. For the following instants, Bonnie _is_ nothing but the Fury, the savage joy to punish and tear apart.

It's her power boiling their blood, melting their insides like butter- _they_ can't even scream because their lungs are already collapsing and thawing, but she can taste their pain on her tongue and it fills her with a wicked, all-encompassing delight. Their lives seep away slowly, like dust between her fingers only because she wills it to be that way, and it's a source of indefinable wonderment, the swiftness with which her helplessness has turned into absolute dominance.

Only when it's over, and a foul stink of all things putrid and decomposing is rising to her nose, does Bonnie become newly aware of the world around her. It happens gradually, every breath in and out calming the wild elation that had possessed her until mere minutes ago, and inside her head there's finally silence, a space for rational thought. The pungent smell strikes her first, inviting her to blink ahead and pay attention. Through the mist of her dissipating inebriation she doesn't entirely understand what she is seeing at first. She just feels her knees going weak before she braces herself on something solid in order to stay upright.

And then the mist is gone and she is alert, weary and sore like she has just ran a marathon but nonetheless lucid and awake. There are corpses at her feet, and the memory of what nearly happened to her hits her like a crumbling brick wall.

Her first reaction is anger: they were going to do that to her _for real_. They were going to steal her soul as certainly as she had stolen their life.

She had not asked for this, had not deserved anything of the sort- so why her, today, and here?

Why had someone –four someones actually- decided her dignity was worth less than five minutes of their satisfaction?

This is when she realizes they are dead, by her hand, and there's no spell that can help her make sense of anything anymore.

She has just killed _people_ – flesh and bone and blood- and she hadn't even meant to. Or maybe she had deep down, but…

She is a _murderer_ , and this is something she never wanted to be.

Bonnie shivers, jumps away from the bodies while fighting the urge to gag. There's no blood anywhere and she has an inkling that it is because she made it steam off.

She leans against the nearest wall, almost falling forward in the process to force air inside and out of her lungs. She can't panic _now_. She can't leave _them_ there either, because if anyone finds them, or finds her there, there will be an ugly repeat of The Burning Times, courtesy of the Sheriff Department.

To worsen the situation, she is completely wiped out, so battered that she couldn't master a simple levitating spell, let alone anything complex enough to hide or dispose of bodies.

Her sweating palm closes around the mobile phone in her purse, but she is surprisingly antsy about calling for help. Picturing Elena's face while she explains her current predicament makes her want to cry.

Stefan would be the obvious choice, except he's constantly attached to Elena, and anything Stefan knows, Elena will soon know as well.

Stefan wouldn't judge her, maybe. He might even understand her and the impulse to react on your darker impulses, especially when threatened, without knowing what they will lead to.

But if they knew, they wouldn't look at her the same way anymore. They might think she overreacted. They would look at her like a threat, a ticking bomb and while she might have deserved that, she wouldn't be able to deal with it.

Damon's serious, blue-bell azure eyes and ivory face pop in her memory, a faded snapshot of the parade on Founders' Day.

" _I owe you"_ he told her, and he sounded like he meant it.

Bonnie's fingertips don't stall while they dial his number- for once, she is relieved that Elena forced it into her contacts list.

She doesn't expect him to pick up at the first thrill, or even recognize her number, but he proves her wrong on both counts:

"Finally, a certain witchy untamed shrew surrenders to my unholy charms. I've always known it was going to happen, eventually."

Bonnie can feel the smug grin in his voice and fails to find hers.

"Little Witch?" he calls out to her, more evenly, after a beat of expectant silence.

"Yes," Bonnie clears her throat, hesitant despite herself, "it's me. Are you around Stefan and Elena right now?"

"No," he huffs, annoyed, "I left them getting all lovey-dovey at Gilberts' house. What do you want with them at this outrageous hour?"

"Actually, it's you I wanted to speak with. I might need to borrow your…talent for getting rid of dead things."

"Vampires?" he inquires, every trace of humor leaving from his tone.

"Human bodies. In the centre of town."

"Awesome," he gives a deep sigh like she has just asked him to bring out the luggage, and it comes across oddly comforting. "Tell me where you are."

* * *

From the roof of the tall building, Katherine forcefully grasps Jeremy's elbow and pulls him back from the edge.

The fat, satisfied smirk on her visage makes the younger vampire want to punch her _hard_ , rearranging those features that have no right to bear any resemblance to his sister.

Elena would be horrified by this, not pleased like a cat who just got her cream, and Jeremy… he is disgusted too, with himself, his choice of alliances, and over all, with what he nearly allowed to happen tonight.

That was Bonnie, his sister's best friend, the girl who basically grew up inside their home, the one his father called 'the unofficial third Gilbert'.

And he had just stood there, watching while she got attacked. While she got terrified to the point of killing four people. Four people he and Katherine compelled to sexually assault her.

The worst part is that it made sense when Katherine had explained it. She'd made it to sound so flawlessly logical, so harmless.

"Oh, come on Jer, don't get all wrinkly and judgmental on me now. We weren't going to allow her to get hurt for real. She is too useful to let go to waste. You'll see how much more malleable our witch will be from tonight on."

_Our witch_ , Katherine calls her, and Jeremy wonders when exactly he allowed Bonnie to become just a means for a purpose and not somebody he used to care for.

Suddenly, what he has just done feels very different from the attack he subjected her to, not too long ago. He set her up to be raped and sure, he meant to step in before any real violence occurred, but he still allowed her to kill four innocent bystanders.

Their deaths weren't to blame on his thirst, this time, but on his obedience to Katherine. She held him back and he let her. He _let_ her.

It occurs to him that his parents, if they could see him now, would be appalled. And it doesn't matter if they can't, because he just _killed_ every single principle they ever taught him. It's like they just died for the second time and it hurts, but he can't bring himself to slip the switch off, because it's _his fault_ , and he deserves to feel it.

Anna, he has been doing all of this for her, for her solely... but Anna despised Katherine. She would have hated the idea of Katherine changing him into anything remotely alike to herself. What if at the end of all these games, Anna can't love him anymore?

' _You are my weakness'_ \- she had confessed to him, so softly, almost shyly, in the privacy of his bedroom.

' _You are my shame'_ \- she would tell him now, and he can't stand it.

"We better get away from here before Damon comes to her rescue, wonder boy. We need to celebrate."

Katherine's airy, annoying voice drones on, her nails digging into his forearm as she drags him away.

He wants to shrug her touch off, but he knows he can't. Not now, at least, and most especially not here.

She is too old, too strong, and very ready to stake him at the slightest sign of rebellion.

And he got his wakeup call a tad too late anyway.

* * *

Damon eyes the bodies at his feet in transparent distaste. At a point he actually wrinkles his nose, leaning down to examine them, and it would be hilarious if it was not already so tragic. "I have never smelled anything like this in all the years I've been a vampire. The stench is like…a disgusting mix of sour milk and rotten swordfish."

Bonnie's mouth doesn't curl in disgust like he anticipated, but she nods quickly and sternly reminds him, "We need to go before someone sees us," like the sexy, uptight high school professor he never had or wanted (outside his favorite porn of course).

"I've shrouded the entire area with my mist, Elphaba. Nobody here will see anyone or anything more than an inch from their nose until I decide to lift it."

"The faster we move-"

"I say you should tell me what you've done to them before we do _anything_."

He says it calmly, no smugness or malice filtering through his words. It's not like he needs them. She is not in any position to refuse his questions. "I thought you said you were going to be discreet about this."

"Doesn't mean I don't want to know what's going on," Damon shrugs, rising to his feet again so he can move closer to her, using his taller height to close in on the witch. The movement makes her slight figure shiver uncontrollably, whereas it would usually do nothing but light up the flame behind her gaze. Her reaction gives him a pause, and he steps back to allow her to get her instinctual responses under check. "What happened to you?"

Bonnie' s gaze shrinks away from his, her hands rubbing her arms up and down to fend off an imaginary chill. "I got attacked. I lost control. This was the result."

When she looks up from the tips of his shoes, her eyes are a mossy green clouded with shame and defiance.

_Come on, rip me a new one-_ they seem to say to him- _I deserve it._

That reflection of fear and of being lost reminds him of another Bonnie, the one he had purposefully scared, while Emily played hide-and-seek within her mind and body. The same he made empty promises of protection to.

It confuses him the way that look leaves him feeling. It's deeper than remorse, not quite shame or anger or indignation. He's suddenly looking forward to the instant he will dispose of those carcasses and wishing he could grind their bones to dust with his bare hands to erase what she did. Erase her feelings of guilt and shame.

"So what spell did you use?"

Bonnie frowns, unable to understand his approach to the insane situation. "Are you really interested in that right now?"

' _Not really'-_ he wants to answer- _but I need to keep my mouth busy and my head clean of you.'_

"Why shouldn't I be?" is what he actually replies.

The witch opens her mouth to say something then closes it abruptly like she has just changed her mind. Her nails dig nervously into her elbows. "I don't know what I've done precisely, okay? I went into this rage-filled trance and when I got out of it, they were dead. I remember their pain inside me, I remember I _enjoyed_ it, I remember I _hungered_ for it. I know their blood boiled and their flesh was turning to mush. I felt it, I loved it and it makes me _sick_ at myself. Is this what you wanted to hear?"

Damon stands a little taller and squares his shoulders, very uncomfortable with the thought that, if he doesn't find a way to stop it, the witch might well begin to _cry_.

"Not quite, but thank you for over sharing. Let's just…" He makes a vague gesture with his hand, puzzled at this new lack of finesse of his.

Bonnie nods, her gaze feverishly vivid, like he has expressed himself perfectly well. "How do we get rid of them?"

"I brought a couple of cloth sacks. I bet that if I break the bones often enough, we can fit all of them in my car trunk. We can melt the remains with acid once we get to the fine Salvatore cellars."

"Okay," Bonnie nods, her features hardening in a mask of resolution. "How can I be helpful?"

"I'll do all the hard work. Just watch for anyone coming near the mist. I didn't park far."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Currently on: Bonnie and Damon finally meet on a common ground, and all the UST they brewed so far finally goes somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack for this chapter is 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles.

Damon walks in the Salvatore's library with a carefully blank expression. "It's done," he says, and the witch nods briefly, hardly looking away from the untouched glass of bourbon he had set in her hands before leaving her there.

"Good."

Her face is crumbled, her eyes red and unnaturally bright, and he can see from how stiff her posture is that her muscles must still be cramping, her body still working to expel the remainders of those dark energies she so recently gathered inside her flesh.

"I told you to drink it," he reprimands her, annoyed, "if alcohol soothes our blood-thirst, it will most likely work to calm your Dark Magic backlash."

"The last thing I need right now is to get drunk" Bonnie answers with a stilted voice without looking at him, "I don't want to risk losing control ever again."

He finds it disturbing, the way she is reacting, and not in a way that would arouse his amusement. The thick awkwardness between them sets his nerves on edge, but he cannot act on his instinct: to be a bigger, crasser bastard than usual, because he has a feeling it wouldn't go over all that well.

He is not cut out to be sensitive, and he is quite certain that she might laugh in his face if he tried or worse (he hates it when she looks stonily straight through his charades like she knows he is only lying his mouth off).

He settles for a reasonable compromise.

"Come on," he sighs with a palpable aggravation, "even you can't that much of a goody-two-shoes to beat yourself over defending your virtue."

This gets Bonnie to stare sightlessly into her swirling glass and finally turn her head to meet his gaze.

"I'm not sorry for _them,_ " she spits, like the mere mention of those men makes her sick, "but I'm sorry that I let them take away from me something I can never get back, and I'm sorry that they had families who will be destroyed when they don't come back home."

She sighs dejectedly, her shoulders sinking under an invisible weight as she takes her chin between her hands "How I am supposed to trust myself again after this?"

Damon scratches the back of his head thoughtfully, unable to look away from her petite frame and yet quite bothered by how defeated she appears. He wishes he could say to her that even if she had allowed those assholes to live, he would find out the truth of what they meant to do to her somehow, and do a lot worse than she had, but intentionally so. He would have never allowed _anyone_ to get away with abusing his property: this town is his territory and, somehow, the little witch became part of his 'pack'.

But he doubts hearing anything like that would make her feel better, so he lets it go, focuses on something more practical.

"Controlling supernatural abilities is a trial by error, little witch. Did you really expect to master your power without ever hitting a bump or two along the way? You'll do better next time."

Bonnie shakes her head frantically, narrowing glassy, haunted eyes on him: "There will be no next time - I'm _done_ with Dark Magic."

"Don't pull a Stefan on me, Bennett," he scoffs, aggravated that she is so willing to send to waste all her potential over one _meaningless_ accident. "You can't afford to. With your lineage and the extent of your power, there will always be a Katherine breathing down your neck. It's not pulling punches that'll make you survive."

"Didn't you see what I did tonight? I can't risk-"

"You _have_ to," the vampire cuts her off harshly; "there are no shortcuts available."

"You don't get it do you?" Bonnie jumps to her feet, arms spreading wide, "You _enjoy_ killing and compelling right, left, and center… You _love_ inflicting pain and fear! I didn't until tonight! Tonight I _adored_ it, and I can't stand thinking of it! I don't want to _ever_ get used to it!"

"You won't," Damon hisses, circling around her. "Rest assured, _Bonnie_ , there's still a goddamn abyss of difference between you and me."

The witch blinks, dazed by both his sudden nearness and the offense snaking through his words. He so rarely uses her first name that it's difficult to not take notice when he does.

"I wasn't trying to insult you!" she spits, gritting her teeth. Her temper is flaring, but she's trying to control it. She won't lose it again.

"Well, _that_ 's a _change_!" Damon says, getting even more in her face and enunciating every word, blue eyes blazing a glowing cobalt shade right in her face.

"You are _such_ an egomaniacal asshole. Not everything is about _you_. I have no idea why I was even trying to explain to you how I feel," Bonnie says, her smile one of disbelief and without humor.

"Well, look around: it's not like you have anybody else to turn to. It's not like you're running to Sweet Elena and Saint Stefan!" he snaps, his voice rising, losing control as he realizes she only turned to him in her moment of shame. "Without me, you'd be waiting for your turn to burn at the stake!"

"Without me, you and your brother would be ashes by now!" How quickly Bonnie forgot to retain her control. She wouldn't just stand there while he yelled in her face. "It's not like you deserved to be saved. You hurt everyone I loved!"

"Well then _thank you_ for being so _fucking_ merciful!"

"And thank you for being nearly _decent_ to me, for _once_ ," she says, calming her voice, but she was still glaring up at him and breathing hard.

And although it's nothing short of a screaming match, it's uncomfortably clear that they both mean what they say. A strange vibe sizzles between them, like the heat they always blamed on mutual dislike has suddenly morphed into something altogether different and unknown.

Their physical proximity makes her skin itch in a manner that is not entirely unpleasant, and Bonnie steps back, her anger spent as easily as it had arisen. The fire simmering low in her belly doesn't extinguish though, and she convinces herself that it's just the magic lingering in her system that is altering her senses.

She nervously touches her hair, surprised as a cool hand grabs her wrist, stilling it with a careful strength. Damon closes the distance she had just established between them, following her footsteps, mesmerized by the warmth emanating from her flesh. Her small, tight body is burning hot like a furnace, and he can feel her high temperature scalding the air around her frame. It's just one more reminder of what she just went through, and of why he should be pulling away from her, but Damon had never seen the point in resisting a temptation.

His thumb runs back and forth across the sensitive inside of her wrist, and Bonnie doesn't fight his touch but her expression remains wary, uncertain.

"I bet all it takes to get you back under control is some supervision. You never had a real opponent to practice offensive spells on until today, so you've never learned to measure out your reactions. It will be different if you have a sparring partner."

"Are you volunteering?" she questions with a mix of incredulity and hopefulness.

"Helping you helps me," he justifies to himself as much he does to her.

"All right," Bonnie acquiesces. "Thank you."

"You are welcome," the vampire smirks lightly, feeling quite reluctant to let her wrist go, but doing it nonetheless.

She rubs the sliver of skin his grip has branded absently, her expressive visage reflecting a guarded concern about his motives for being so compliant.

"Am I to expect you saying anything to your brother or Elena before I get the chance to?"

"Maybe," he chuckles, although he is not amused in the slightest, "but isn't it so much more entertaining when the two of us keep secrets?"

Not quite sure if she wants to agree or not, Bonnie stays quiet. The silence doesn't last long, because for some reason it feels important that the words keep flowing between them. He gets her to agree about sending her father away finally, and they craft vague plans about fight training.

He watches her fending off her exhaustion with admirable effort, but he doesn't call her on it. When she crumbles, pretty much passing out on the armchair while he is spouting tactical advice over some subject she can no longer remember, Damon doesn't even bother to try and nudge her awake. He only takes in the weary lines engraved on that young face and then gathers her carefully in his arms to carry her upstairs. He lays her down on his bed, gets her shoes off and tucks her under his sheets with a gentleness that surprises him.

He scowls as his fingers brush a few unruly locks away from her face, and then finds there's nothing else for him to do other than sit on the edge of the mattress and glare at her still form like his tangled feelings are entirely her fault.

Bonnie doesn't sleep long or easily: it's after barely one hour that her eyes flutter open, and she doesn't feel well rested, only vaguely restless, as she quickly realizes where she is and why.

Awakening to find Damon Salvatore staring down at her with a fixed gravity and herself wrapped in purple silk sheets in a strange bed is quite the disorienting endeavor, but it does wonders to bring her back to the fucked up reality, hard and fast.

"For just a moment," she mutters, levering on her elbows to grouch herself up to a sitting position, "I hoped last night was all one senseless nightmare."

"It's not." Damon shrugs, still watching her with that aggravating, unfiltered focus. In the morning's light, his eyes are a silvery azure that colors them much colder, almost unfeeling.

"A shame," she replies, absolutely unable to make sense of anything anymore.

Damon finds himself unsettled by the way the witch refuses to shy away from his gaze. The way she is looking back at him then is a new brand of upsetting. It reminds him of the look he saw Stefan giving to Elena or Lexi a few times across the decades: usually whenever his life was going to shit and he wanted to silently beg them to stop the train-wreck before he lost his mind.

Nobody looks at _Damon_ like that, _ever_. With good reason too, since Damon is not sensitive or altruistic enough to give a shit about anyone else's messes. He also has a hunch that if the little witch was aware of the weakness she is so carelessly displaying to him now, she would be utterly humiliated.

She doesn't trust him and he doesn't trust her and nothing has changed, so why the fuck does he have this impulse to _fix_ her?

He doesn't know how he is supposed to handle a Bonnie Bennett that is uncertain and breakable and lost instead of scathing and proud and confident. The Bonnie he knows doesn't depend on anyone to get by and she most certainly is not afraid of making unpopular choices or voicing unpopular opinions.

Perhaps he tucks her hair behind her ear only because he wants to break the impasse, to get her to stop looking at him.

Perhaps he leans forward and presses his mouth to hers only because he hopes she will slap him and give him something familiar again.

Even if he is quite certain that on a list of things to do with a girl who's been sexually assaulted less than 48 hours ago, kissing her is at the very bottom.

He is shocked when the slap doesn't come. Bonnie doesn't move at all, just waits it out as his lips move slowly around hers. She doesn't get why he would want to kiss her, really, especially now: he has always wanted Elena or Katherine for as long she can remember and after the night she just had, she can't be all that irresistibly attractive.

Yet, as the pressure of his tongue against her lips grows from tentative to demanding, she discovers she is tired of analyzing. If nothing will make sense anymore, she might as well go with the tide.

Damon is something close to freaked out when her mouth opens against his and Bonnie starts to kiss him back: it's not a rushed kiss but it's a hungry one, and she douses him with a hurried aggression that has him wondering if she is angry with herself or with him, if she really wants it or it's just the easiest way to punish herself.

He should put a stop to it, probably, but there's this feeling of trepidation and anxiety building in the pit of his stomach, and then a sense of juvenile, unreasonable fear that wars against the promise of an elated release.

It is entirely too unexpected, to have _her_ in his arms, warm and compliant, to be cupping her cheek to angle her head so he can kiss her more deeply. He keeps expecting her to push him off any moment now, so he really, really should make the best of it. Even if it's wrong and fucking _stupid_ because there's a fat and sound chance that the witch will be soon yelling at him for taking advantage of her.

He goes with it anyway because it's hot and he's not so hypocritical to deny he has wanted this for a long awhile, _badly_. He just didn't think it would ever happen.

As he coaxes her down, the strands of her hair silky-soft between his fingers while her arms wrap around his shoulders, he can't pretend he has not imagined it often, how it would feel being the first to make Bonnie Bennett melt and whimper.

In fact, Damon has imagined it so often that it's nearly funny that it's happening for real, and if he stops, maybe it's just to double-check that they are both on the same page and he is not making it all up inside his head.

After all, lately, he has been proved to be a bit too keen on self-delusions for his taste.

Bonnie's shadowed, green eyes look up to him from behind lowered lashes, questioning, her lips parted and swollen, and Damon feels again the strangest mix of terror and excitement gobbling up his throat.

" _You_ started it," she reminds him, feeling more than a little self-conscious, as her nails scrape his nape.

"So?"

" _So_ , finish it, before I change my mind."

"I see," he drawls, his tone a smooth blend of honey and poison, a perfect bait to get a grasp on her thoughts because, damn, he still can't figure her out, and it unnerves him like mad even _now_. "Am I supposed to be the host of your pity party?"

If his hands weren't raking up and down the contours of her body, molding her to him, she would be tempted to take offense and fling him off her. Possibly to set his pretty hair on fire. But his touch is too distracting, to allow her to pay attention to anything but the unresolved tension they have been building for so long, over the course of many arguments and disagreements, now breaking dam after dam to weave this unreal fog of arousal and relief.

Bonnie heaves a deep sigh and smirks, more roguish than bitter. "Sorry, but pity parties are more of your specialty than mine," she assures, although she is not completely certain she is not lying. Perhaps there's a part of her that hungers for self-destruction today, but all for all, she doesn't think it's why she is doing _this_. It's more the fact that he sees her –sins and flaws- and she feels him –for better or worse- and when he touches her it feels good and real.

Her hips arch upwards, pressing against his, and Damon feels himself literally shaking, clamming up his mouth so he doesn't do anything embarrassing like moan or growl.

Hefeels her lips accidentally brush his neck and the subsequent spike of anticipation is enough to forget any point he was so set on arguing.

He kisses her again –slow and deliberate whereas before it was clumsy and passionate- intent on exploring the texture of her skin, the taste of her mouth and the spicy flavor of her scent.

Damon wills it to be all about the power play, but the witch is swiftly bringing out of him something different: that urge to dominate keeps getting quelled by an elusive _need_ to keep Bonnie whole and functioning, to be _kind_ to her even while he craves to sate himself with everything about her.

He doesn't understand it, but then that just seems to be his trend with everything today.

Her skin burns higher than normal still, he notices while his palms roam along her legs, bunching up her dress around her hips before lifting it over her head and tossing it on the floor. Her hands slide under his shirt too, a telekinetic force pulling at his buttons until they all skitter around the room: her eagerness designs a smug grin on his lips, which are meshed to hers.

He loves the sensation of her hands on him, skimming slowly from his back to the well-defined planes of his stomach and chest, and he likes it that she is touching him like she is not afraid or ashamed.

He loves the way she moves under him, tentative and yet bold, a testament to both her lack of experience and her ease to go along with her body's responses.

Back to the times he was born and raised, accepting as a life-companion a girl who was anything less than _untouched_ was considered unacceptable. He had thought so little of it, then, preferring the company of harlots and maids to courting what his father would define 'suitable girls'.

Respectable virgins had looked dull and boring when confronted with the alternative of easy, loose, free-mouthed conquests. Now, with Bonnie, for the first time Damon thinks he finally understands that old fixation with only claiming the unmarred.

There's something extremely appealing in his current awareness of being the first to graze Bonnie's bare skin, of being the only one who knows how she tastes and sounds and responds. It makes every caress and moan worth more somehow, and when her cheek nuzzles the hollow of his throat, her limbs stretching and quivering under his weight, the sensation is so intense that it's almost like it's a first for him too.

She nips at his neck, her lips tugging at the skin ever so briefly before closing again in one languid, open-mouthed kiss, and he's wild for her, clenching his eyes shut and stilling every muscle in his body to not attack her.

Taking in one shuddering, frustrated breath, he unclasps her bra with fumbling fingers before discarding it quickly, half-expecting to be mocked any moment for that boy-ish eagerness. Glancing up to his lover, he can find no sign of censure in her features.

If anything, she looks every bit as nervous a wreck, biting on her bottom lip in a very shy, unwillingly sexy pose.

For an instant he nearly wishes he was the kind of man who would know how to speak the right words, the perfect cheesy lines. He's ever been that kind of man, so he returns to what he knows- the art of pleasing a woman through physical contact.

Damon ducks his head and runs his fangs along her skin, from her collarbone to the valley between her breasts, gifting her with lingering kisses along the way. He can feel her hips jerking, the juncture of her thighs instinctively seeking and rubbing against his thigh.

Groaning, he nuzzles his face between her soft breasts before ducking lower, teasing her brown, hard nipples in turns with his sharp teeth. Her fingers tangle and twist in his short hair, pulling as she cries out in both pain and pleasure, her spine arching to push her curves to his mouth.

His tongue slides relentlessly downwards to her stomach and she shivers, it dips into her navel and she gasps.

"Da-mon," she chokes out, and it forces him to stop because although _he's_ supposed to be taking advantage of _her_ , when she throws him with those small, tantalizing details it feels more like it's the other way around.

The vampire coaxes himself out of that drawback, strokes her thighs and her inner legs softly before he tugs her underwear off slowly, caressing and kneading her flesh as he goes.

"I _hate_ you," Bonnie grumbles breathily, her muscles quivering and melting under his caresses.

Damon stops abruptly stroking her calves: " _What_?"

This is _not_ the usual, _natural_ reaction he gets from women during sex… what the hell is wrong with this one?

"What?" she echoes, dazed with frustrated arousal and impatience. Then she takes in his puzzled, offended expression and recalls what she was apparently thinking out loud a moment ago.

"Do you notice a slight imbalance between us?"she tries to explain, hoping her mortification is not all that evident.

Damon's expression manages to remain both blank and faintly resentful.

"I'm practically naked, and you… are _not,_ " Bonnie hisses, fisting the sheet in aggravation while she gestures to Damon's half-hanging shirt and pants. It's not that she didn't attempt to get them off, but he just kept stilling her hands whenever they got in the way of his 'quest'. And she didn't mind all that much but now it is slightly embarrassing to be naked with a very 'clothed' vampire when they are to…

"Oh," he pauses and smirks in that cocky manner that is just _begging_ her to fry him, his eyes glittering with arrogance as he gets out of his clothes with surprisingly elegant rapidity.

"That was _fast_."

"I _am_ a vampire, cupcake."

"Start with the ridiculous pet names, and I'm out of here," she vetoes, attempting to regain a resemblance of dignity.

Which proves to be particularly difficult, when his mouth is back between her thighs, suckling their inner patch of skin until he parts them further, runs his tongue leisurely and repeatedly along her slit as his thumb presses down hard on her swollen clitoris.

Whole her body jolts and writhes in pleasure and whatever is left of her mind really wishes she could hate him now, because he is entirely too good at this.

He keeps at it until the hungry, throbbing ache in her womb is positively painful and she is working hard to hold in a sob of longing.

His fingers dig in her thighs, stilling her as his teeth come nibbling on her nub and finally the delicious tension inside her uncoils and overflows.

The sound of glass creaking almost covers Damon's self-satisfied chuckle.

"What was that?" she whispers, breathless as he slides up against her, every inch where his skin touches hers tingling.

"I think you just nicked my window, BB," he retorts conspiratorially, bending her wobbly knees higher, "but no worries, you can pay me back."

"You are such an ass-" she exhales, a wave of white-hot fire shuddering through her every nerve-ending as Damon thrusts inside her, stretching her deeply.

He strokes her sides soothingly while she gets used to him, his face hiding in her hair as he inhales her in. "So hot," she hears him utter and for a fleeting, unexpectedly painful instant the witch wonders if he is picturing someone else, imagining that it's Elena's warm body under his.

It's a stupid thought, she recognizes: it's not like she was secretly pining after Damon all this time, and he is as entitled to his feelings as she is to hers. It's still her first time, anyway, and while she holds no romantic delusions over its meaning, it would be nice knowing she is not a fill-in.

Her doubts pretty much disappear when Damon draws back, mouth tight as he begins to move inside and out of her wet warmth. One of his hands goes to frame her visage, tilting it up so he can look into her eyes.

An arcane current of energy stirs and shifts between them, and suddenly she is seeing so clearly: it's like their souls are brushing along each other and maybe, maybe this is exactly what is occurring.

She read about it once- it's not unusual that sex becomes a psychic channel between two adequately powerful supernatural creatures.

Either way, what she sees takes her breath away: there's such a wild darkness hidden inside Damon Salvatore, a voracious, Dionysian appetite for everything and anything, a restless hunger for solace. Power, and confusion, and solitude. Deep down, he is just as weary and lost as she is.

It scares her beyond reason, that he is capable of sensing her the same way, but there's no erecting barriers now.

He sees everything of her too: her affection for her friends and family, so powerful and protective, her pride and her calm strength. He feels her guilt too, her demanding responsibility to live up to what her Grams wanted for her. The black depth of her remorse, because Sheila always had her granddaughter's back and when Bonnie was supposed to return the favor, she chose to have Stefan's back instead.

Damon clutches the witch to him, ecstasy slithering through his senses and defenses until every conscious thought is simply gone and the one thing he remembers is that Bonnie feels so good, so scorching hot around him.

And they come together.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Jeremy pays a visit to Tyler's grave, Damon and Bonnie face their 'morning-after.'

Damon is beginning to suspect that he will never able to _entirely_ predict what will pass through Bonnie Bennett's pretty head.

For one, he never expected her to allow him to touch her, but she did, and he was fairly certain that she was going to return to her usual moralistic self and jump out of his bed as soon as the deed was done. Probably screaming in outrage. Acting almighty and disgusted, accusing him of having taken advantage of her vulnerability.

But, he observes now, propping up his head over his forearm to watch the witch as she bends to gather her dress from the floor, what he couldn't have fathomed was this…composed acceptance of hers.

Instead of leaping out of his arms and vomiting harsh words in the space between them as soon as he pulled out of her, she had allowed him to brush her hair away from her face, her eyes wide and shadowed like she was already retreating inward. Out of pure principle, Damon had tried to pull her back into the moment, with peppered kisses and lingering caresses and the dirtiest things that came into his head. Again, he had expected to be staked with a pencil or something. Instead Bonnie kept that annoyingly nebulous, all-knowing gaze on his and let him go for round two.

Which he hadn't minded at all. Quite the contrary, to say the truth. He could not remember the last time he felt so satisfied and smug about taking a beautiful woman to bed. It still bugs him that he doesn't understand her reaction… or his reaction to her reaction, if that makes any sense.

Bonnie's spine is ram-rod straight as he slips her dress back on, and he feels marginally disappointed to see her body covered again so soon. Also, the absence of girl drama irks him even though he usually favors his girls quiet and out of the door when sex and feeding is no longer on the menu.

Perhaps he is just addicted to pulling this witch's strings. Who can blame him? It's such an easy thrill. Or it would be, if she had not just joined the murderers-and-derelicts crew.

"So, no threatening to castrate me if I breathe a word of this to anyone? No recriminations, insults, tears of bliss?"

Sparing a cursory glance around the room for her dispersed shoes, Bonnie shrugs and simply exhales a sound and strong "No."

"No?"

Finally, she looks back at him, stoic despite the dark lines of tiredness around her eyes. "You wouldn't tell it to anyone, because first, nobody would believe you, and second, it would ruin whatever last chances you think you have with Elena. And I won't yell at you, because even if sleeping with you was not the brightest idea I've ever had, it took my mind off all the other ugly stuff, and that was exactly what I wanted."

"You're such a romantic little bird. No wonder you're single."

While Damon will admit that goading her for stating the truth is not the wisest option at his disposal given her volatile emotions lately, her careless bluntness offends him. It's _his_ job to slap people around with brutal honesty.

"Who's insulting whom now?"

"No offense intended, Sabrina. I'm just making reasonable observations. I thought all good girls were into cuddling and grand romantic expectations, especially after getting deflowered from hot, proficient specimen like myself."

Bonnie rolls her eyes upward and strives to ignore the heat that is creeping up her neck to her cheeks. Of course he wouldn't let this pass without boasting. She decides that retreating behind sarcasm is easier than acknowledging that she can still feel the imprint of his mouth all over her skin. "Are you asking for a hug?"

"I just feel _used_."

"You are _unbelievable_."

"Thank you," he smirks like somebody who's holding in a sinful secret, blue eyes crinkling while sheets pool around his waist with a slow, fluid movement that brings him to lie on his side and expose the full glory of his perfectly defined upper body. Her mind goes utterly blank for a moment or two, hair raised on her nape, goose bumps over her arms. She should _not_ feel any shame over noticing that he looks so good. His gorgeous outside is fact more than opinion. It's also always been a ringing alarm to the ugliness hiding beneath the surface, until today.

"It wasn't a compliment."

"I don't care. You were complimentary enough during the last two hours. I know you've got to have a limit."

At _this_ , Bonnie can do nothing but blink.

Damon doesn't relent: "Nothing to add?"

"What do you want? A thank you card? "

Her question actually gives him pause: he becomes aware of an impulse to keep the witch right where she is. The problem is that he can't imagine what to do with her when spectacular sex is no longer a viable alternative and draining her no alternative at all.

"I encourage you to show me your appreciation. But not with a card," he chirps lewdly, undeterred by the Medusa-like glare she pins on him a few seconds before putting on her shoes angrily and stomping toward the door.

* * *

"I'm really sorry," Jeremy said to the grey gravestone, setting down a few wildflowers he caught while he made his way through the cemetery.

He had felt awkward coming here empty-handed, but he feels plain silly offering _flowers_ to what is left of _Tyler Lockwood._

But when all is said and done, he knows he should be feeling so much worse than silly. Isn't that what making amends is about?

"I know we never got along, but I never wanted it to end this way. I never know what Katherine is up to until it's too late and…when I know, it doesn't seem to make much difference anyway."

Shame burns in his gut as Jeremy remembers Bonnie and what almost happened to her. He knows she's far from being an innocent wallflower, but it doesn't make him feel any better.

"It's like I don't know anything anymore."

All he knew for certain is irreversibly gone. _Her Beautiful Lost Boy_ – Anna called him once in an excess of post-coital tenderness, her fingertips dancing over his features. She loved his humanity… and where had it led her? She was dead for saving him. Killed by his uncle's hand…the same uncle who was supposed to know how much Jeremy cared about that petite Asian girl.

Jeremy feels guilty for that, too. He had felt guilty from before he turned, because Anna had done nothing but save him, and he had done nothing but choose his family over her.

What about now? He could save her. He'd thought, in the beginning, that his useless humanity was a fair price to pay for her life. Now… he is confused. Anna deserves to come back, about this he is certain: he owes that much. But he misses that boy he was so eager to leave behind.

"I miss _me_ ," he repeats out loud, numbly. It's fitting that the one person he can share this dawning realization with is Tyler Lockwood, who was the first casualty in his and Katherine's quest.

Staring down at the gravesite, Jeremy knows he can do nothing to undo the past. The old Jeremy Gilbert would be just as gone if he had truly committed suicide, and giving up on Anna and Pearl now would be nothing but an act of cowardice. He needs to know it wasn't all for nothing. But at the same time, he knows he can't keep following Katherine's rules. He can't oppose her, not openly, but he needs to find a way to contain her, if that's even possible.

Things have to change… and he won't destroy all he used to care for to achieve his victory. If he can't be the boy he was, then he will be somebody else. Somebody Katherine won't play like a cello. Somebody he can live with for an eternity, even if Anna won't be there to share it with him.

Unfortunately, he has no idea how to make all of this happen without warning Bonnie. Or talking Damon Salvatore into some kind of deal.

' _I'm completely out of my league,'_ Jeremy admits to himself and strangely, owning to it makes him feel better.

He can and will work on this until he has found a suitable solution.


	11. Chapter 11

This was never supposed to happen again. Bonnie knows it just like she knows she should stop. Stop familiarizing with Damon, stop paying attention to those possessive, appreciative once-overs he's been sending her since the night they had sex whenever Alaric, Stefan, or Elena aren't around. Which was barely two days and half ago, actually.

She should stop remembering that too; stop having nightmares about the men she has killed, about what could have happened to her if she had not been able to protect herself. She should stop feeling like that night has irreversibly connected her to Damon.

She is not Elena: she doesn't think all Damon needs is love, and she doesn't particularly appreciate his tendency to place on whatever love interest he is chasing at the time the responsibility of deciding whom he is. She wants no part in the Salvatore-Pierce love square and she definitely doesn't need to question Damon's feelings where she is concerned.

Bonnie has seen Damon being both a protector and an evil fiend, and she finally understands that fierce loyalty and cold cruelty can come just as easily to him.

And that makes him all the more dangerously unpredictable, because most of time he chooses to be bad, selfish, and uncaring.

Hell, he kissed Elena (or the vampire who posed as Elena) less than one hour after Elena's boyfriend – Damon's own brother- saved him from being burned to a crisp.

He's the type of person she should to be setting strict boundaries with. Boundaries to stop her from having sex with him _again_. The _last_ thing she needs is to have sex with him again.

Which is why she should stop this. Push his cool, toned, bare-chested body off hers, crawl out of her bed, pick her discarded shirt and invite him to leave her bedroom.

It's the right decision: to stop, stop before this truce they managed to build goes to waste. There's a reason they argue so often and so easily. There are many good reasons actually, but she can't go there, not now, even if her sensible, sane side reminds her that she should.

"Stop thinking," Damon growls against her collarbone, demanding her full attention by fisting her hair and pulling hard at it.

It had started –again- while she stood in her kitchen, supervising him as he compelled her father to leave for some small town near Dublin, to stay there until he received a certain phone call from Damon, who was supposed to simply hum some ridiculous folk song. Her father was convinced he had won the trip at some drawing. The compulsion was complex – Sean Bennett being carefully persuaded not to ever question any part of the well-crafted illusion. It was a relief that Damon seemed to know what he was doing. The whole trip and getaway was organized by him…organized and paid for, which Bonnie hated. She hated being so dependent on another person in general and Damon in particular; hated not being able to provide for her family, both economically and magically. But what was she supposed to do?

Her father doesn't have enough money to stay abroad for Gods-know-how-long and she can't afford to refuse Damon's offer.

" _Take it as me making up for getting your grannie six feet under,"_ he had commented carelessly, when she had tried to protest, effectively putting end to their argument.

While Bonnie watched the car drive away with her dad inside, a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness washed over her. She felt fragile all of sudden, like going inside the now empty house was a despairing prospective. So she stood on the porch, arms crossed before her chest, staring at the driveway long after her father was gone. At least it felt like a long time, but it couldn't have been very long, considering Damon's impatient streak. He lingered behind her like a shadow, until she felt his lips dragging along her neck, exploring the curve of her neck while his hands settled on her hips and drew her toward him.

She should have sent him on his way then, instead of just pulling out of his arms and striding inside, allowing him to trail after her. Why had she not?

Sleeping with him once was a fluke of fortune, but twice is…

The painful pressure of fangs on her shoulder shakes Bonnie out of her thoughts. "Ow," she cries out, her fist punching his back repeatedly while he licks the blood oozing from the superficial cut with an appreciative purr.

"I _told_ you to stop thinking," he has the gall to reprimand her, patronizing as ever. His knee slides between her legs, locking her in place.

"If His Majesty spoke…" she mocks him, rolling her eyes as routine dictates.

"You should pay attention to Him," Damon drawls, almost lazily, in her ear, nipping the lobe lightly. His palms cup her bare stomach and her breast like he's claiming ownership.

It's not a mindset she should encourage. She has no intention of becoming his latest toy. She should not allow him to think that he can do or ask whatever of her just because there are secrets and small courtesies piling up between them.

But it's hard to be reasonable when her fingers are entwining with his at each side of her head and his weight is pinning her down to the mattress, his mouth demanding access to hers. It feels comfortable, the way their bodies fit together, more familiar than it should.

Bonnie doesn't feel alone or fragile now, just intensely aware of his taste, his scent, the strength in his quivering muscles. She feels him brushing against her entrance and knows it's too late to stop anyway.

When Damon pushes inside her, the movement smooth and hard at once, it feels different than the first time. She feels nothing but a rush of pleasure at being stretched, filled at first. Then it comes again, the strangeness of his feelings mingling with hers. She senses his desire and his bloodlust slipping into her bloodstream plus some new feeling…a sense of entitlement, of self-satisfaction, of possession.

She resents the last one the most, and yet she arches under him, matching the pace he has set while holding on to his broad shoulders, her nails digging in harshly.

His thoughts thunder between her ears, and try as she might, there's no gathering the focus to push them out.

' _My pretty, tight Little Witch. I love it when she tries to hold in all the sounds. Come on sweetie, I wanna hear you choke on them.'_

Stay out of my head-Bonnie wants to scream, but she is afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she even _tried_ to be articulate. Her hypersensitive body is a stranger to her right now.

Psychically, and emotionally, she is completely open and vulnerable to _him_. Damon might destroy her so easily, and that loss of control is both frightening and exhilarating in the extreme.

It's also what gets her utterly undone. One moment she is sure she's about to crawl out of her skin unless he stops torturing her and the next she is squeezing him hard between her thighs and dissolving into liquid fire.

* * *

In the 'after,' exactly like the first time, she has no clue what she's supposed to do with herself. On a list of activities Bonnie Bennett expected engaging in at some point of her life, casual sex wasn't even contemplated.

She feels sore and extremely self-conscious, all the more since Damon appears perfectly at ease, naked beside her. Which makes sense since he might well be the most promiscuous person she has had the misfortune of meeting.

Her bed is small enough that their bodies are pretty much forced to press against each other, but the vampire makes no move to disentangle their legs and leave her side.

"Where's your psycho cat anyway? I was half-expecting an attack on my family jewels, if you know what I mean."

Bonnie doesn't quite fight off the smile at her companion's usual, casual crassness. "Finn is not really my cat; he's more like a…frequently visiting guest. He goes away for days at times, and then he comes to check on me before leaving again."

Almost like he's watching over her on Grams' account. It makes her sad, because she has a feeling that someday Finn will see her starting to get better, and he will not return to her door anymore. He has been itching for the wilderness since Grams has been gone, and all that keeps him still connected to the Bennett household is the old bindings of loyalty to his witch. Finn was Sheila's familiar, and therefore the last living piece of her heart. Bonnie doesn't want to lose that too, but there's nothing she can do about it; familiars will never belong to anyone but the witch they chose.

"He's not doing a good job then." Damon's voice is silky, insinuating, as his fingers spread over her hip and his teeth nip at the joint between her neck and shoulder. "Letting strange, old, dead men into your bed."

"Do you ever talk of anything that is not connected to either sex or murder?"

She tries to push away his touch but it's not practical, with the cramped space they have to share and he is nothing but persistent. Apparently, vampires have no concept of personal space whatsoever.

"Only when I can't help it, honey," he teases silkily, his lips brushing her ear. "But if you want to talk about where this relationship is going so badly, I can indulge you. Orgasms soften me up."

Bonnie chuckles, shaking her head almost fondly. "You know your dirty jokes amuse only yourself, don't you?"

"I wasn't kidding. I was trying to _not_ make you feel like a cheap pity fuck."

He runs a hand along the curve of her back while he speaks, resting his palm too low for her liking. She repays his impertinence with her most brilliant fake smile. "Or maybe you are just suicidal and trying to push me to torch you alive."

"I would prefer if you tried to kill me via utter exhaustion," Damon whispers suggestively, slipping his hands lower yet to squeeze her ass.

Bonnie heaves an annoyed sigh, snatches his offending hand away from her flesh, clutching it as hard she can, hoping it hurts at least a little but knowing that it probably doesn't, and sits upright.

" _This_ ," she remarks, waving her index between them to indicate them both, "can't and won't happen again, Damon."

"Are you sure?" the smirk that settles on his lips as he lounges back is lazy, derisive. "You and I are so _stressed_ these days. And _this_ , as you call it, was curing us so well. Why should we stop?"

His façade of detached arrogance is so well-perfected that his attitude would fool her easily, if not for those unwanted glimpses she gets about him while they have sex. Just one more reason to stop before they get in too deep.

The gaze she pins on him is hard, a definite no-nonsense memento.

"It's not about that," she reminds him with deliberate surety. "I feel so disengaged from _everything_ lately, but not from _you_. Don't even pretend you aren't in the same place, because I wouldn't believe it. This absurd situation has stuck us with each other, but it doesn't mean we have go along with it and just…screw each other silly."

His blue eyes lose a bit of their coolness to brighten up in unmasked appreciation. "I almost like you when you're talking dirty."

"I'm serious, Damon."

"Aren't you always?"

"We're banning sex from this 'association' of ours right now."

"If you want me to take you at face value, witch, you need to stop sounding like a dominatrix. It gets me in the mood."

"Damon…"

Instead of softening, her features harden in a strict glower and although he finds the expression to be absolutely inviting of all sorts of convoluted, filthy images, he just rolls his eyes like he's uninterested.

"Suit yourself," the vampire snaps, thinking that he might as well take it as a challenge. He never wants something as much as when he is denied it, anyway.

Why should he let some annoying Emily descendant call all the shots?


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie keeps struggling to handle the most primal aspects of her witch nature, and Damon does anything but help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to this chapter is 'Real'- Goo Goo Dolls(a truly perfect Bamon song, listen it if you have the chance).

** **

"What's up with you lately?" Bonnie ventures to her best friend during one relatively uneventful evening. "You've been strange lately."

The witch would have probably noticed before Stefan asked her to talk to his girlfriend if she hadn't been so preoccupied with her own private issues. Stefan is worried for her, says that something is off with Elena even though he can't pinpoint what. Bonnie agrees that Elena has been sending off the same vibe she did when she was striving to look 'okay' after her parents' death. Which is kind of acceptable since Jeremy turned and disappeared; and Katherine keeps sending little gifts and psycho love letters to Stefan. Bonnie feels guilty for not being more supportive, but it's not like Elena is not permanently attached to her boyfriend's side. Almost like she is…avoiding her, but that is not possible. Elena and Stefan don't even suspect about _that night_.

"Strange is the new normal in this house," Elena answers offhandedly, twisting a chestnut lock between her fingers. "I'm just weary of all these crises. I'm tired of wondering if Jeremy will ever even call me. I'm sick of Katherine stalking my boyfriend and sending him her creepy letters reminiscing about their past. I don't feel like talking about this stuff all the time. "

Looking at her, Bonnie is reminded for a moment of the privileged popular queen bee she was just a year ago. Which might be good, bad, or neither. Everyone needs to shut down sometimes. "Okay."

"How's it going with Damon?"

"What?" For a moment, Bonnie is startled by the question. She keeps forgetting her little training sessions with the vampire are common knowledge although no one but her and Damon know why they are so necessary.

"The offensive spell-work practice. Are you making any progress?"

Elena sounds hopeful, like she is picturing all the ways they might get Katherine out of the picture already. It irrationally irks the witch. "My aim with fire balls sucks," she shrugs. "Managing to not kill Damon for real is progress enough for now."

It might come across as a joke, but there's more than a little truth behind those words.

If Damon wasn't as powerful and experienced as he is, she would be worried. Sometimes, when the spells work through her, she gets so very angry that it's hard to keep it all in and let the rage out in a controlled, steady manner. Sometimes, when she tries to contain the power, it physically hurts her so badly that she feels like she is going die. She finds herself unable to talk about it, with anyone. Not solely because no one but Damon and Gwen knows about her recent study in Dark Magic. Her weakness fills her with shame. It's bad enough that Damon sees it so frequently.

Elena leans on Bonnie because Bonnie has always been stable, accommodating, the voice of reason when things went from bad to worse. Bonnie is afraid of losing any more constants in her small world. She is scared of being seen as weak, un-trustworthy, a threat.

"His antics take a lot of getting used to."

Elena smiles lightly, basically transpiring fondness and slight nostalgia. Bonnie is not entirely sure how much of her accurate reading of her friend is due to her life-long companionship and how much is due to her developing powers. Either way, she makes a point of writing the thought out of her memory. Since forging her weird, inconstant and private understanding with Damon, she feels uncomfortable passing judgment on what she has privately christened as 'The Triangle of Doom.'

Stefan has not been with Elena long enough to know that the girl is not used to denying herself anything, and while Elena's intentions are always good and her love for Stefan plain as day to see, Bonnie wonders how long her friend will be following her advice and keeping her distance from Damon.

She feels almost a little bit guilty at the possibility of Elena missing him, because although she still believes her advice is right and genuine, the fact that she has slept with the older Salvatore brother makes it look otherwise.

Which is stupid because it's not like Bonnie has _stolen_ him or whatever and while Elena can enjoy Damon's attention and company, her relationship with Stefan still stands sacred.

_Does Elena lust after Damon despite that?_

"Are you glaring at me?" the brunette in question inquires, amused, shaking the witch out of her inner monologue.

"No," Bonnie replies collectedly, "but I was thinking we need ice scream, cookies, and a good romantic comedy. It's been ages since we had a normal girls-only evening."

The proposition both distracts and intrigues her best friend instantly. "It's a great idea. I can't even remember the last time we went by the video store."

Her degree of enthusiasm leaves Bonnie feeling even guiltier.

_Two-timing two brothers is gross. Elena wouldn't do it. Not even inside her head. I'm becoming paranoid because of… that other thing. Damn, I knew nothing good could come out of having sex with the devil._

Underneath the guilt, deep down in that dark, primitive core of herself where her Power sinks its roots, a more basic instinct tugs at her. It's territorial, angry, ferocious. It doesn't recognize Elena as an equal, and it dislikes being challenged by a mere human.

 _I'm human too. –_ the witch tries to convince herself.

Grams' firm voice echoes in between her thoughts, a memento from one of her first lessons: _'Spell-work is what we do, Bonnie, but Witchcraft is what we_ _are_ _. It permeates and shapes every part of us: how we feel, how we think, how we act and react.'_

Sometimes Bonnie thinks moving on from Grams is so hard because, blood ties aside, in the Craft Sheila was the mother who gave her a new life. She was the first one of their kind to welcome and accept her, the one who taught her to understand and accept herself. Even before knowing the truth, Bonnie had always felt a sense of belonging when she was with her crazy grandma, so unexplainable and yet evident that even her parents seemed a bit upset at it sometimes.

She starkly refuses to feel like that about Damon someday. Even if she is forced to share that part of herself with him for now, she won't let this entwine their lives so permanently.

* * *

The forest is so dark in the night despite the pale moonlight filtering through the evergreen foliage that Bonnie is strongly reminded of a premonition she had long time ago, when Emily was poking her ghostly nose in her dreams. The mental picture is as a vivid as an actual memory, but it stirs no fear, only more power.

She can feel _everything_ : the moon's subtle, feminine energy descending from above like an affectionate, cool caress; the Hearth under her feet, like a generous, life-giving gravity; the trees and the plants all around her, vibrating with a gentle force.

An owl calls for his mate somewhere in the distance and she can feel the love echoing in that call too, so different and yet the same as its human equivalent. Her senses locate both the birds easily.

She is at the very centre of an infinite spider's web, and its invisible threads make the entire world reverberate through her body. It's hard to retain consciousness in the face of all that unadulterated power- it's not hers but it might take her over effortlessly if she didn't keep her mental barriers up. The learning process is frustrating, but Bonnie is determined, and she trusts that determination more than anything. A witch is just as strong as her self-discipline, Grams would say.

She waits for the moment she starts to feel smaller, because that's how it feels when the Power is slipping through the cracks of her barricades to possess her: she responds by expanding her aura, strengthening its margins and her sense of self by mentally chanting her name.

She is almost ready when another Power source charges at her, cutting through the wilderness with a thunderbolt-like speed.

"I was not ready!"Bonnie snaps, molding the energy at her disposal in a gleaming shield of light that temporarily blinds her adversary but just slightly delays his attack. She heats the shield so that when his hand reaches to grab her, his palm and fingers blister.

Damon jumps back, his vampire face doing nothing to dissimulate the patronizing smirk that bares his sharp monstrous teeth. "If this is the best you can do when you're caught by surprise, you're an easy meal."

"Hardly."

She charges at him with a telekinetic push, but right before he can crash against a tree trunk, his body dissolves into a grey mist.

It's a trick that gets him out of trouble every damn time she gets close to doing any real damage to him and it annoys her very much; she still has not figured a way around it.

Bonnie glances around warily as the mist grows thicker and closes in around her. She needs to force him to rematerialize if she wants another chance to attack him.

Stretching her arms ahead, she chants the Gaelic term for 'wind', raising a breeze that disperses the fog with increasing persistence. She can sense his resistance as the mist resiliently filters through the breeze to surround her again, and she boosts her magic to feed the wind until a miniature hurricane rises around her frame. For a full five minutes their Powers are at a stand-still. She grits her teeth and focuses with greater intensity, expending more effort to clamp down her sudden appetite for destruction, wanting to gain the upper hand. Then she exerts herself just a bit more and, inch by inch, she sweeps the mist away without losing the control over her aggressive instincts.

Damon's body reforms at her left: his soundly, sardonically clapping hands are the first one to materialize, and the witch concedes to him one begrudging extra point for scenic effect.

"Not bad," he comments, his tone far more patronizing than flattering, "but it hasn't truly resolved anything, has it? Hit me with something real now, little girl-"

Bonnie does her best to comply that wish, cutting him off with a telekinetic punch aimed at his chiseled jaw. His lips are bloody but he's laughing as he staggers.

"Unoriginal but effective, I got to hand it to you, Bennett. That all you got?"

She goes for another punch, but he's good and fast enough to sense the direction of the shifting air and evade it. Instead of being disappointed, she feels a wild excitement bubbling up inside: she can see the same emotion reflected in Damon's gaze, and it feeds hers.

Smirking, she sends out a few tendrils of her aura so they descend into the warm and welcoming soil …and laughs as two brown earth-made claws grab the vampire's ankles. After trying to kick them off him, he turns a stubborn, mocking glare on her, flashing his fangs threateningly.

"Don't expect me to be gentle when I wipe you out. You can't keep those on forever-"

"I didn't plan to"

Her invisible hand slaps him hard across the face, and then she hits him even harder in the stomach. It takes three blows to make his knees buckle and drag a soft grunt of pain from that bloody mouth.

She is faintly disturbed at how good it feels to bring him down to this. There's a twisted, endearing quality to the murderous intensity he keeps looking at her with, and she doesn't understand or even wonder why but she wants more of it.

So she adds the finishing touch, strengthens the vice of the earthly claws around his ankles and then has them drag him down to the ground.

Exhilaration surges through her as she watches the vampire fall, a sign that she is getting drunk with magic again. It doesn't feel wrong. It feels natural, like shedding your clothes for a shower after an exhausting day. This is what a witch is meant to be after all: a vessel for her gods' ancient power.

She is tempted to attack again, with something more satisfying, more spectacular. But she glances at Damon, face down, no longer watching her with ink-black, red-ringed irises, and releases him from her hold. Then she breaths slowly out and lets every link she has to the Web go.

Bonnie sways, overcome from the backlash: suddenly she feels bereft, not quite certain of what is real and what is not. She has let go too fast, as per her usual mistake.

She notices the predator rushing up toward her too late to react accordingly: her back is already uncomfortably pressed against a trunk, and cool fingers are loosely splayed around her throat, exercising a slightly painful pressure just to prove a point.

"I win," Damon growls, licking his lips.

Bonnie would object but it's complicated to do with his hand pressuring on her larynx and every inch of her flesh heating exponentially…not metaphorically, but literally. Her body temperature always seems to increase to blatantly non-human levels after a fight.

He frees her throat just to dip his head down and graze it with his fangs. She should be terrified, eager to fend him off given their 'precedents'. But that other alien half of her is in charge, and it recognizes his right to bite her, so she turns her head so the curve of her neck is entirely exposed.

Right at this moment, she wants to feel his fangs sinking into her flesh, her blood sliding down his throat.

She can feel his smile on her skin while his mouth nuzzles her neck, but he doesn't bite her. His fangs barely press on her flesh before what had started as a playful nip turns into Damon suckling on her neck like he is set on marking it with a hickey the size of Texas.

Bonnie stifles a moan, closes her eyes and allows herself to enjoy the sensation for few moments. It feels natural, like the culmination of a dance they started without meaning to. Which of course brings her back to the real reason she shouldn't be…indulging. Especially since Damon is getting ahead of himself already, pinching her hip and cupping her breast.

She focuses her mind on the task and sends him flipping backwards.

"Not nice, Elphaba."

"If you insist on copping a feel, you might at least bother saying my name."

"I'll keep it in mind for next time, _Bonnie_."

His eyes are back to their normal blue and shining with all sorts of bad intentions.

"There will be no next time."

He nods and advances toward her with a roguish grin, and she backtracks at the same pace.

At a point he gets fed up with it and dashes at her, trying to entrap her again against a tree. Bonnie foils his plan with a timely slap- a real, completely human slap, which does not hurt him but still slackens his jaw.

"If this is what turns you on-"

"It _doesn't_ ," she grits.

"You know you're lying, I can smell-"

Bonnie doesn't really want to know how that sentence ends, so she slaps him again. "At least _try_ to contain yourself, little witch," he says giddily.

"Look, I know you don't really listen to what _anyone_ says, but you can believe me now: you and me are not going to have sex _ever again_."

Damon has the gall to sigh and roll his eyes like he thinks she is being unnecessarily difficult. "Why are you fighting it so hard? I want you, you want me: let's sweat it out. "

"It doesn't work like that!"

"It does when you aren't a bossy, sexually repressed, martyr-complexed witch!"

They don't get any further in their argument because they are soon alerted to another presence in their relative proximity. They were so preoccupied with each other that they had not heard it coming, so when a familiar voice sneaks in the discussion they turn toward its source so fast that Bonnie's neck cramps.

They don't jump apart regardless-perhaps Damon even instinctively leans closer to his 'sparring partner'.

"I'm really sorry about the interruption," Jeremy breaks in, finding the startled expression on their faces more than a bit discouraging, "but I really need to talk to both of you, away from any ears."

Inwardly, the young vampire crosses his fingers and hopes they won't try killing him once he has finished his carefully rehearsed speech.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie, Jeremy and Damon have a talk and many ugly truths come to light while the bond between the witch and her vampire grows stronger.

****

**  
**

"What you do you want?" Damon growls, his cold eyes narrowing on Jeremy in evident annoyance and suspicion. Jeremy has the feeling the older vampire is ready to attack him the moment he steps forward, so he stays immobile, shifting his gaze on a confused looking Bonnie.

Jeremy is tempted to blush at how good she smells, like a sugary blend of sweat and adrenaline and arousal, and he tries to remember that to try drinking her up would be an extremely bad idea, regardless of what his thirst would indicate him to believe.

"I'm telling the truth. I'm just here to talk. About Katherine."

"About Katherine," Bonnie inquires, recovering a certain cool aloofness, "or _fo_ r Katherine?"

"She doesn't even know I'm here. I want to work out a deal."

"Are we honestly supposed to believe that _you_ are trying to double cross _Katherine_?"Damon snorts, an arrogant sort of amusement and lazy indignation plain on his features.

Slightly miffed that he is not being taken seriously, even after how low he has sunk, yet emboldened just as much by the annoyed look Bonnie has just shot to her companion, Jeremy parrots the other vampire's mocking tone with a raised eyebrow:

"I know what she wants and it's what I want too. If you agree to give it to me, I'll help you put her down."

"And we would believe you _why?_ " Damon sarcastically spits just as the witch beside him interjects, "What is it she wants so badly?"

Jeremy wets his suddenly dry lips before going on, striving to ignore Damon and stare straight into Bonnie's green, serious eyes."Anna and Pearl, your magic can resurrect them."

The rest of his speech doesn't come easily, but once he has started, Jeremy learns he can't stop. He reveals everything, from how the Necromicron was Katherine's and she had somehow intended to get it in Bonnie's hands, to her plan of singling Bonnie out in order to manipulate her to do her bidding. The hardest part is confessing about compelling those four guys and observing their attack on her.

Jeremy hears himself pronouncing the words as if from a wide distance: the 'feelings-switch' is off before he fully realizes it. He has locked his shame and guilt away, almost like it's a natural reaction by now.

"I would never let them go too far," he justifies himself, and he hopes she sees he means every syllable. But the witch just shakes her head lightly, letting out a low, sardonic laughter filled with disdain.

Damon's fists are clenched at his sides and his shoulders are tight with tension, but he's angling himself toward Bonnie, the need to observe her reaction strong enough to distract him temporarily from his urge to beat the other vampire to a pulp.

"Too far?" Even while her voice remains soft, almost musical, Bonnie's eyes flash a vivid, furious, unnatural green. "How far is 'too far' for two psycho vampires, exactly? How much leeway were you ready to give them? Would you have allowed them to roughen up me a little? Let them have a look under my clothes, a couple of kicks to knock me down."

Damon snarls at the imagery she is painting for them, so low that only Jeremy can hear him, but it's not what makes Jeremy flinch. It's that he has no answer for Bonnie: he doesn't know how far Katherine was prepared to go but, most importantly, he doesn't know whether he would have actually been capable of acting against her wishes.

"I don't even know who you are anymore, why should I give you what you want? You don't deserve it!"

She wraps her arms around herself, the déjà-vu this confrontation is arousing inside her doing nothing to calm her mounting anger.

"Because Anna deserves it! The one reason they took her is because she was trying to protect me and this town! You _owe_ her! This whole town owes her!"

"I owe her? The vampire who had me and your sister _kidnapped_ and _manhandled_ by her insane boyfriend? If you think this, perhaps the two of you truly deserve each other!"

"She did what she had to, to save her mom!" Jeremy seethes, his voice rising to match hers. "I would have done the same for mine, and you can't say you wouldn't-"

Outraged by his allusion to Grams and hurt by the too fresh memory of that awful day, Bonnie lets her power loose, clutching his throat with an imaginary hand and in the same moment wrapping a high-pitched sound in an invisible energy sphere. She projects it inside his skull and lets the noise explode in his mind.

The trick works on Jeremy even better than it had worked on Stefan. The young vampire's knees bend like melting butter and he curls on himself as he falls down, not even clutching his head to protect his ears.

Bonnie smirks coldly, a sinister light behind her gaze as she watches him convulse on the ground, soundlessly because she is completely cutting off his air supply.

Damon's shoulder bumps hers as he inches closer to her, but he doesn't stop her nor does he do anything to help Jeremy. He is just watching on with a somber, undecipherable expression that has something predatory, and something satisfied, and something displeased as well.

His regard bothers her enough that she finds in herself the will to stop.

It's disturbing and confusing that she can get a hint of what he hides under the mask with no more than a furtive glance, but she commands her mind to not go there, not now and maybe not ever.

Jeremy coughs up blood, turning on his stomach with a groan of pain, and she has to look away, because she feels like she's breaking. Her head knows he deserved it, and her Power demanded retribution, but the part of her that is still very human is horrified. He's just a _kid_ , a kid who used to pull at her hair and steal her hairclips for fun, a kid who lost his parents and two girls he cared about in the same cursed year, and she is taking pleasure in beating him up.

_How did everything get so fucked up?_

Damon steps forward, kneeling next to Jeremy to grab him by his hair and pull his head back.

"So, boy. Give me a reason to not rip your head off your neck. Or even better, to give your bitch of a mistress a heads up about what a little fickle, talentless fool you are?"

"Elena," Jeremy utters, plastering the beginning of a cocky grin on his lips. It goes over less well than he had hoped since Damon rolls his eyes, annoyed, and smashes his face on the ground thrice, each harder than the last. Honestly, the older Salvatore has been waiting to do something like this since Isobel came to town. It's a source of endless aggravation that every ignorant, oblivious nobody which comes his way lately claims to know for certain that Damon is _in love_ with Elena Gilbert.

If Damon was in love _again_ , he's quite sure he would be the first to know. With Katherine, he had known right away, regardless of how painful and humiliating the whole experience was.

"She will be better off without you," he adds, more for Bonnie's benefit than Jeremy's. He turns to meet her wide, haunted eyes, searching for any hint of silent approval.

Jeremy coughs out more blood, his bruised visage shifting to his vampiric form. His nose is broken but the broken skin is already beginning to heal, and Bonnie takes in the process with a distant, morbid fascination. She is scared that the moment she stops distracting herself, she is going to look back to Damon and give him some sort of positive signal.

How is she supposed to know whether finishing Jeremy off is the right thing to do? It's not a decision she wants to make, and it's not a decision Elena would make, so where does this leave them?

It's appalling that she is even considering the murder of her best friend's little brother as a solution.

Damon keeps smacking Jeremy's head on the ground, so violently, and just a week ago the sight would have her forced to throw up. Now it just leaves her cold.

"Katherine," Jeremy grunts. "You can't defeat her without inside help."

"That's just what _you_ believe, baby boy," Damon drawls with a smile that might just be defined as cruel, just before the sound of snapping bones echoes among the trees when the boy's cheek meets the grass once more. It's clear enough that he's enjoying the violence, the dominance, the pain he's causing and Bonnie remembers because he used to scare her so much.

"Stop!" the witch cuts in firmly, surprised that Damon actually freezes the moment the word is out. "If Katherine is really working for someone older and stronger, maybe killing her won't stop anything. We can use him. "

She tried very hard to block out that working with Jeremy might mean informing Stefan and Elena about her recent transgressions. The welfare of her town comes before her shame and her personal relationships.

Damon lets the boy go and gets up with an aggravated sigh and a last kick to Jeremy's prone form.

"You are one lucky loser, baby boy."

"We're going leave now," Bonnie goes on, grasping Damon's wrist and pulling him toward her. "And you won't follow after us. I'm going to think about what you said and I'll make a decision when I don't feel like killing you just because I can."

Again, she expects Damon to undermine her and her shocking newfound decisiveness, but the vampire just takes over where she left off by finishing with the threat she could not bring herself to pronounce.

"Breath a word to your sister, her boy-toy, or anyone else and you are finished, _Jer_ , I'll make sure of it."

He says it so smoothly that she shivers, knowing it's probably for her benefit. Damon is protecting her again, and he should not.

While they walk among the trees, Bonnie's hand never leaves Damon's wrist. Her grip is strong enough to hurt a human, but the vampire is more worried at the speed her feet keep going, stumbling on the occasional root but never slowing down, even after he had to catch her repeatedly to stop her from falling.

She has not said one single word since they left Jeremy, and that bothers him. He can imagine where her mind is going, and he dislikes imagining her blaming herself over things that are nowhere close to being her fault.

"Bonnie?" he calls for her, fed up with the waiting.

"I can't talk about it now," she answers, not bothering to even glance his way. It annoys him.

"About what?"

"About _anything_!"

Her nails dig in and he almost plays with the idea that she might brand him, leaving permanent marks where her warm fingertips press against cool skin. He dismisses the mildly pleasant thought before it's fully formed.

Thick silence elapses for few minutes more before she contradicts herself by breaking it.

"I killed four men for nothing." She sighs and under the tense collectedness she says it with, he can sense how angry she is at herself.

"Not for nothing, for legitimate defense. Compelled or not, they were a threat. Nothing has really changed where that's concerned."

His calm obliges her to recoil and halt her uneven walking, finally flipping around to face him. "Everything changed! How could I not notice?"

"How were you supposed to notice?" Damon counters, unyielding. "You are not God, Bennett. Despite your propensity for self-flagellation and pushy self-righteousness."

His attempt at humor only seems to upset her even more, and she drops his hand abruptly, her eyes blazing.

"I'm a _witch_!"

"You did the best you could with what you had."

"It wasn't enough!"

"What do you want me to tell you?" Finally she sees him start losing his cool, and it satisfies her, because what she has done should matter, should seem awful, even to _him_. "Life is unfair and sometimes people pay just for the fact they are _in the way._ It happens!"

"You should know that better than anyone else!"

For a few seconds, Damon genuinely wants to grab her shoulders and tear her throat ope

, because she is being impossible and he's sick of her constantly bringing up the past. Why can't she be a little more … _manageable_ , like Elena, and just accept that he wants to comfort her? It's not like it comes naturally to him, but he's trying and her hysteria is no help!

With mounting horror, Bonnie realizes that, just staring at him and standing before him, snapping, has lifted that flimsy veil of shock and denial she held on for protection. Something is coming loose inside her and she can't stop it.

The memories, the reality of that horrible night, the accurate strategy Katherine had applied to single her out, Gwen's betrayal are all sinking in and it's simply too much.

Hot tears gather in her eyes and she wills herself to hold them in for just a little longer. It's a useless, humiliating effort and they slide over her burning cheeks copiously as she chokes on a sob.

Bonnie covers her face with her palms, hating fiercely that Damon is there, watching her again as she falls apart.

She is so ashamed and so hurt and the tears just keep coming. It feels like the harder she tries to keep quiet, the harder she shudders and cries.

She doesn't sense Damon approaching until his fingers begin stroking through her hair cautiously, but she doesn't stop him because all her energies are focused on not bawling like a baby and lose all sense of herself.

After awhile his arm wraps around her hips, pulling her close, and his hand cups the back of her head to press her cheek against his chest. As her nose brushes the rift between his arm and shoulder, Bonnie inhales his masculine scent and lets the familiarity of it wash over her.

She breathes it in and out until her crying finally slows down.

Damon exploits the break to lift her legs and pick her up, bridal style, running at full vampire speed toward her home before the little witch could gather the strength to fight him.

"Thank you," was the one comment past her lips once she was tucked in her bed, her covers up to her chin. Damon could have used her turmoil to get what he wanted, but something stopped him. He could not pinpoint what it was, but while he stood by a Bonnie who stripped and put on her PJs, he had felt singularly disinclined to do anything but glare at her stupid cat.

The very same cat who had curled at her feet while he stood by the window, mumbling that he was staying to make sure that Jeremy didn't put to use his free pass to the house for the night.

"Thank you," she had repeated, even smiling as Damon snapped a, "Just be quiet and sleep."

The softness in Bonnie's tone shook him. Not because she sounded weak, but because she sounded grateful and almost…affectionate toward him.

All night long, he stares at her sleeping face and marvels at the serenity it gives him, the simple action to keep her safe.

Contrary to popular belief, Damon Salvatore is not completely oblivious to the reality around him, even when he dislikes it. He has lived long enough to know what has been happening to him where Bonnie Bennett is concerned. He does understand that there's a reason his head is full of nothing but her, even when he should busy himself with much more real concerns. Like putting Katherine down, or plotting his revenge for all the years he has wasted mourning her loss and taking out his rage on Stefan.

But the fact stays: since the night he had her, all he really he wants to do is being near the witch; take care of her; make sure she is protected and sane; fantasize about how long it will take to wear her silly resistance down.

And when he sleeps, all he dreams about is her and the night he nearly drained her. But in his dreams, he never let Stefan touch her; instead he gathers her in his arms and feeds her his blood while her taste still fills his mouth. Some other times his dreams are more carnal, and it's all about their bodies joining on the forest's green grass while the air around them carries a heady scent of summer blossoms.

He's developing an annoying tendency to get hot-headed and bothered whenever he sees her in conversation with Stefan, Alaric or that horrid Donovan boy. It even bugged him to see her wasting one whole _hour_ of telephone conversation coddling Caroline, or -even worse- Elena. The witch would flay him for how territorial he is if she knew. He hates it whenever she spends alone time with Elena, only because Elena is _supposedly_ the most important person to her.

He just wants _all_ of Bonnie's attention, _all the time_ lately, and that's especially frustrating since she acts like she is utterly determined to give him as little she can.

Damon despises himself for how frustrated and jealous he _allow_ s her to make him feel. Because while his behavior might be defined as borderline psychotic for a common male human, it is quite normal for a vampire, as he has seen happen to countless others of his kind while Stefan played the pathetic human wannabe.

What he feels for Bonnie is not love but the way his nature pulls and insists on her as a potential mate. He supposes it was bound to happen, considering that in 145 years he has sired few childer, and purely out of a varying combination of boredom, carelessness, and bitterness. Just because vampires don't reproduce like humans do, it doesn't mean they don't have biological imperative to perpetuate their bloodline.

Before, with Katherine shadowing every thought of his, he had felt bound to wait for her, his instincts recognizing her like his one true companion. Now that the truth had set him free, perhaps it was logical that the vampire in him demanded to fill that vacant space.

Logically, he knows he doesn't necessarily want Bonnie around for eternity.

Rationally, he sees he doesn't even really want her as his childe: he enjoys their dynamic for what it is, and he has no intention to change it. Yet, the instinct is there, challenging him to fuck, defend, mark and feed.

He can only wait until it goes away.

 _It's not love_ \- he reassures himself- _It_ _will_ _go away._

By dawn, he is flying out of her bedroom, proud that he is going to skip unnecessary awkwardness. A raven keeps roaming the sky above the Bennett's property until the girl inside is heading to school.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie, Jeremy and Damon have sketched a strategy to destroy Katherine, and now it's time to set it in motion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack to this chapter: 'A Beautiful Dawn' by Wailin' Jennys.

Borgin's Emporium isn't an easy shop to find. It has a 'hide-me' spell placed on it, so unless you have someone recommend you to the owner thus procuring you a client card, you can walk around Dusty Lane until your feet are sore, but would not find it.

This security measure is quite necessary since the shop specializes in 'objects with unusual and powerful properties,' specifically ancient ones. In other words, it was a Dark Arts shop.

Fortunately, Bonnie has inherited her card from Grams although she supposes her grandmother would have been appalled to know that she would need to use it so soon, and for such reasons.

"What has the world come to: Bonnie Bennett skipping _cheerleadering practice_ to shop at a place like this," Damon sneers, his cheek brushing hers as his chin hovers on her shoulder and his arm snakes around her waist.

She allows the contact to last a moment longer than she should before stepping forward and away from him.

"Tell me again why you're following me?"

He shrugs, blue eyes glittering in the sunlight, and she resents him deeply for being handsome, standing here beside her when he is supposed to be somewhere else, pestering Stefan or Elena or Katherine.

"Everyone needs a hobby. This is mine."

Bonnie shakes her head, drawing her lips in a thigh line as soon as she notices they are trying to pull up in a smile.

Amelia Borgin, the owner, waits on the threshold, scrutinizing the couple expressionlessly, her arms crossed before her bosom. She is a woman in her mid-forties, still sensual looking with her dark, long hair, dark red lips, and pale face; a gothic matron clad in all black, impassive but intimidating.

Bonnie wonders what the woman's black eyes see when she watches them, and her fingers tighten around the card in her pocket before taking it out.

"Wait here. I'll be done in a second."

Damon's hand cups her hip and draws her back against him. "It's not a good idea going in there alone for the first time. Convince her to let me in."

Bonnie snickers, finding the notion ridiculous. "She barely knows me, and only through Grams' mentions. She would be insane to let a vampire inside her shop merely because I say so."

She moves away from him, and this time he doesn't stop her. His gaze bores into her back anyway. She can feel it even after Amelia has stepped aside to let her in. The shop is quite large, dusty, and dimly lit, with shelves lining virtually anywhere, and fluorescent vials, amulets and jars filled with strange and horrid things like bones, mummified human heads, and hearts in formalin.

Still, the youngest Bennett keeps her expression blank, and meets the older witch's probing stare boldly. Knowing that Damon is waiting for her outside, backing her up, makes her feel more secure, despite whatever she said before entering.

"What can I help you with?"

Amelia's voice is strong, melodic, resonating with power.

Bonnie knows, as she answers, that her tone is no match. "I'm looking for a Hand Of Glory."

"It's expensive."

"I can afford it."

Which was, sadly, Jeremy's doing. Bonnie had not wanted to know where the money came from when she accepted it. She just hopes the path she has opted to take is the right one.

Amelia places a wooden, plain box on the counter, opens it to reveal a left hand, dried and pickled, his skin grey and papery. Magic hums through it like a cold, cutting force that tastes like winter's frost and the first snow of December

The older witch takes in the younger one's nod and names a price. Bonnie pays without another word.

* * *

Damon falls in step right behind her as she walks out of the Emporium, her box tucked in her bag.

"So?"

"I have it."

He grabs her elbow, just tight enough to redirect her without hurting her, steering her toward a nearby café.

"Let's get some coffee. I want you to talk to me."

Bonnie huffs but doesn't rebel. She doesn't look him in the eye until they are sitting at their small circular table, a fuming cup before each one of them. She brings her cup to her lips and sips, waiting. When she first showed to him the spell on the Necromicron and illustrated the modifications she wanted to apply to the general scheme of the ritual, the vampire had looked intrigued. It was a matter of merging two different rites together: the evocation of the Moirae and a Restitution Petition.

Now that every tassel is sliding in place, Damon no longer looks so certain that her idea is worth trying, and Bonnie can tell this solely by his growing indifference towards her explanations of the various proceedings .

"Let's stop tiptoeing around the subject," he begins bluntly, like he is not the one who has been in avoidance mode. "The basics of _giving_ Katherine a lesson by turning her games on her seemed truly appealing to me at first, but I had the chance to reason it more level-headedly now. I don't think you're at the stage where you can write rituals this complicated by yourself. Last thing I need is another dead witch on my hands. "

His callousness in slipping a dig at her grandmother's death in conversation angers her, but not so much that she would forget taking offense at his sudden lack of faith in her abilities. Out of everyone in town, he should be the one to know she is sufficiently strong enough to do this.

Bonnie knows better than to allow those feelings to get the best of her. It's what he wants probably: to see her faltering and angry, just enough to be easily swayed.

She strives to appear unmoved. "I can do my part, Damon, and I can do it without your support. What is your _real_ issue here? Are you scared that killing Katherine is more appealing in theory than in practice?"

In truth, she has often feared this possibility. She has come to count on Damon's alliance, whether it was accidentally formed or not. If he was to change sides now, it would be a disaster. He knows too much of her and of all her weaknesses.

His expression hardens at her accusation, and he is quick to snap a clipped, "Don't insult me, Bennett. _I_ know perfectly well what I want."

"Really? She was more than the woman you loved, she was your purpose. Are you gonna say that pleasing her wasn't the one reason that kept you going for more than a century? You can't expect me to believe there's not a part of you that still loves her underneath the hatred and the bitterness."

Damon's flawless features school themselves into a bland mask, but that just adds to the stormy fury reflected in his eyes.

He leans forward, smiling sinisterly. "Maybe you're right. Deep down, I still feel whatever she used to be to me, even if it's twisted beyond recognition. Do you think it changes anything, little girl? The fact that she lives is not just an insult to my self-respect, it's a threat. It will never be over until she stops walking on the same planet I do, and I want to be _free_ of this poison that binds me to her."

The chilling clarity of his words echoes through her mind and touches her in places she can't identify; she just understands that something about the intensity of his intent transmits straight to her.

"Fine." It's all she can respond. "Then mind your part and I'll mind mine."

"Use your head for something other than separating your ears, Bonnie!" he hisses through clenched teeth. "You want to summon _Fates_. Ask to have four vampires resurrected as your slaves in restitution for the four men whose lives you have taken. What would happen if the Powers That Be decided that your being tricked into murder is not a wrong to be compensated, but a fault to be punished? What if they take it out on you? You could die or worse. I can't let you _play_ with things bigger than you are!"

Bonnie is about to snap that he is not in a position of letting or not letting anything happen to her when a strange, startling concept snakes through her mind, leaving her utterly confused. "Are you… _worried_ about me?"

"You're no use or fun to me if you die now," he reminds her nastily, eyes narrowing like she has just insulted him.

"I _won't_ die," she repeats vehemently, putting down her coffee to touch his arm instinctively. "Restitution Petitions have been done by witches for ages. If my case doesn't fit the requirements, my request will be ignored, and we'll find another way to fix everything."

Original Restitution Petitions were invocated to demand the Gods to bind to the caster's will a person who had greatly offended the witch in question, for example by killing a relative, or intentionally causing another un-reimbursable loss. The 'victim' of the spell was thus called to serve the spellcaster in retribution for the committed wrongdoing, until they were both alive.

The difference here is that Bonnie wants, recognizing Katherine Pierce as the offending party, to ask that Pearl, Anna, that Harper guy that Stefan had occasionally mentioned with some sort of respect, and some other vampire dead on Mystic Falls' soil as her servants to successfully defeat Katherine and whoever had sent her. It would be a perfect symmetry: four lives given for four lives taken, four soldiers in Bonnie's pocket to protect both herself and her hometown.

"If by some miracle the spell doesn't kill you, Pearl will try to find a way to cause your death, evading all your direct orders. She won't take kindly to being teenager's slave."

"She won't kill me because both her and her daughter will be dust as soon my heart stops beating. The magic will keep them alive as long as I'm here to be served. And it's not like I'll be making their lives impossible. I don't plan on ordering them to do anything except protect the town, help me fight Team Katherine, and not kill humans unless it's in self defense. It's just 3 rules, and since they are bound to protect the town, they should be able to keep living even after my life meets its _natural_ ending."

Damon slouches back against his seat, visibly baffled by her little speech even after he rolls his eyes at her weirdness.

"You're a nutcase, finding loopholes to keep alive vampires you despise."

"Being fair to them is part of being fair to myself. I want to be able to look back at this year, after this mess is resolved, and say I haven't become someone I can't respect."

He looks at her strangely then, tilting his head like he is mentally dissecting every fragment of her and trying to understand how everything works together.

It lasts little, because by the next instant the queer emotions on his face- curiosity, wonder, hunger?- are gone and he's snickering, back to his usual arrogant self: "I'll remember that when Zeus' lightning bolt comes down and incinerates you."

She notices just now that she has never removed her hand from his arm and runs her thumb over the contour of it in a silly attempt to smooth over his bad mood.

"They are my Gods, Damon. I have faith in Them even if you have no faith in anything but yourself. Magic is empty without love and without trust in the universe."

Even if she profoundly believes what she is saying, she has never truly spoken so openly about her religion to anyone before. Although it's real to her and Elena has seen what Witchcraft can do firsthand, Bonnie always had the deeply rooted conviction that talking out loud about the strictly spiritual side of it to non wiccans would have inevitably exposed her to ridicule.

She begins to pull her hand away, self-conscious, but Damon's fingers grasp it and play with hers.

He seems quite fascinated with his untouched coffee while he nods with an exaggerated sigh. "Let's do this your way if you feel it's _that_ important."

To her crazy heart, it translates as 'I'll trust this because you do, and I trust you.'

It fills her with warmth, the starkly non-sexual kind of she never considered she would have associated with Damon Salvatore.

Bonnie entwines her fingers with his and softly recognizes the inevitable. "You are a good friend to me."

The vampire raises his eyes to hers finally, and the amused twinkle in those cobalt irises is nearly mesmerizing.

"Whatever you say, milady," he intones with an exaggerated, cheerful formality before lifting her hand up and dropping a searing kiss on the back of her wrist.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katherine keeps breaking hearts and Bonnie keeps repairing them.

"Let me to see if I've understood this right," Damon drawls, his brows furrowed skeptically. "You called me over because you lost hold of a _cat_? The very same obviously disturbed cat I've often suggested you hand over to Stefan as evening snack?"

When Bonnie called him and asked if he could pass by her house, this wasn't even close to the reason he expected.

Bonnie sternly glares at him as she crosses her arms before her chest, fleetingly wondering why she had thought he would be even remotely helpful, considering his lack of whatever form of sensibility, and briefly feeling begrudgingly defensive over her reasons to turn to him. Damon is not the comforting type, so why had she wanted him here _now_?

"It's my fault…" she frowns, deciding to not indulge his polemics. "I tried a soul-bonding spell on him last night; I wanted to see if Finn could work out as my familiar. He rejected it and ran out of the window like Hell was on his heels."

Damon nods, taking in her defeated stance as the witch sits on her bed, his mind still impatiently seeking to grasp where the problem is.

"So go and use a summoning spell." He shrugs.

"It wouldn't work. Finn has been bonded to Grams since she was a little older than me. He is not a normal cat anymore."

The sadness in her green eyes as she says that has Damon sitting close to her in a flash, leaning in to brush his nose on her curls. Bonnie slides out of his reach as subtly as she can, a fresh stab of guilt reminding her that getting along with this vampire is the metaphorical equivalent of killing her grandmother all over again.

Because the reason Damon is able to sit there with her, is the very fact that Grams can't be.

Her friendship with the Salvatore brothers came to be at the high price of Sheila Bennett's life. Try hard as she can, Bonnie's mind simply can't shut that thought out.

Hardly discouraged from her attempt to increase the distance between their bodies, Damon just slides even closer than before, his lips brushing her earlobe as he suggests in a flirty, dismissive purr:

"Well, if the little psycho doesn't come back, we'll get you another kitten when Hurricane Katherine is forever banished."

He knows he might be overplaying his hand by surrounding her waist with his arm, but he wills himself to not care. After all, he does want to sweep her somber mood away and he is unable to admit to himself that he doesn't really know how else to act. Even if his attitude might give the witch the impression that the one thing he wants is to fuck her for a simple, good fuck's sake.

 _When in doubt, resort to physicality_ : that is one strategy that has always served him very well. Although that wasn't all that true where the girl in question was concerned.

His fingertips trace the outline of her caramel neck, pushing her dark locks out of the way. Something about the shade and texture of her skin captivates him intensely for a few seconds, and he feels his fangs ache right before her sigh dispels the hunger away.

"Familiars are supposed to be really good to anchor their witches to Hearth during trance-work, you know…they help us to stay grounded and to recharge if our energy field weakens during rituals. I was hoping Finn could assist me with the Petition. It would've made me feel more secure. "

Bonnie hates the needy, whiny undertone to her voice with a passion. It makes her feel like a stupid little girl busy crying all over herself when bigger things are at play. The fact that Damon is with her during this moment just makes it more humiliating.

His thumb soothingly rubs the back of her neck. "You'll do well without him," the vampire adds after an awkward pause, and he sounds so damn matter-of-fact about it that it angers her on principle.

"The one time my grandmother did something big without him, she _died._ "

The words crawl up to her mouth, burning her throat like acid, and she snaps without meaning to. As soon she realizes what she has just said the remorse chokes her, rising from the very bottom of her soul, twice as vicious as before, because she is twice a betrayer, to Damon, and to Grams.

The memories are too raw and she can still hear Grams lamenting how moody and aggressive Finn was behaving, the week before Damon's schemes prompted the Tomb's opening. Grams had kept Finn sedated with some Belladonna's oil and confined him to her locked up bedroom.

She had told her granddaughter that the cat was too volatile to use, downplayed his strange behavior as 'full moon jitters.'

Bonnie now wonders if the older witch had understood the signs perfectly well and simply chose to disregard them, choosing to protect her family regardless of the cost.

It breaks Bonnie's heart just imagining this, so she doesn't dare to believe it too fully. Not today at least.

Just like she doesn't dare to examine too closely why seeing Damon freeze at her words hurts just as badly.

His expression is placid but she can sense the tension underlying it, and the way his eyes keen on hers is both guarded and expectant. She knows he is giving her the chance to decide what it will be–anger or affection, a fight or a kiss- while steeling himself to react accordingly.

He is probably telling himself that he has no preference anyway.

If Damon was anyone else, she would apologize for being so short-tempered with him and bringing up a past neither of them can change. But apologizing is out of question: it would only trivialize what he has done and the loss eating her inside.

She wishes she could say _anything_ without becoming either a bad friend or a horrible granddaughter.

And yet, right now, the last thing she wants is to be arguing with the one person she feels truly close to anymore.

So she doesn't apologize, not verbally at least.

She just presses her mouth to his softly, so he'll know this is not about escaping reality or self-flagellation issues, and let everything else fade away.

* * *

One hour of heated making out later, Damon is strolling inside the Salvatore boarding house, satisfied and confused in equal parts.

It's unusual for him to leave a woman's bed before he had gotten all he can get out of her, but this time he had not felt like pushing Bonnie for sex. Mostly, he had wanted her to be comfortable with him, and while he desired her fiercely, he understood better than anyone else that kissing and pawing for the fun of it was more intimate than a convenient fuck.

He likes the idea of having something meaningful and private with the little witch, something that no one else can quite touch, not Elena or Stefan or Katherine or even her dead grandmother.

Recently she called him a friend, and he is slightly embarrassed that there's a side of him that is deeply flattered – maybe even grateful- for that unexpected compliment. It feels good knowing that Bonnie has seen the worst of him and yet found it in herself to take him in her heart. She is not a girl to use the term 'friend' lightly: when he heard her call him that, he knew he could expect her to have his back unconditionally.

He has not had that kind of security since Katherine broke him and Stefan apart.

He is so preoccupied with those musings tan he almost doesn't notice the other presence in his home until his tumbler is in his hands and he is reaching for his shot glass, wanting nothing more than to drown his aching thirst for Bonnie's blood in alcohol. A familiar sensation pulls at his senses and he puts the scotch away with a displeased sigh.

"You have the little Bennett's scent all over you. I'm wondering if Stefan is so off his game to not notice."

Katherine's grating, provocatively and deliberately pleasant-sounding voice comes right on cue and Damon turns around to find her comfortably, elegantly nestled on his couch.

 _Still just as theatrical as ever_ \- Damon contemplates idly, disgusted from yet another thing they had in common. He hates the way he has molded himself in her image, and he hates even more not knowing who he would have been without her. Her poison has shaped nearly every fragment of his life.

When he finally kills her, when her death will have erased every visible evidence of his shame… will he finally feel free, or at the very least less haunted?

"What are you doing here?" he asks calmly, his lips turning downwards in bored displeasure.

"Obviously I'm visiting."

Katherine has her cattiest smile on, the one that used to make his human heart skip a beat. Now it only elicits a weary disgust. He is tired of these games even while a part of him can't picture ever doing without them.

"Thanks for stating the obvious. Now get to the point and leave before I forget courtesy and get myself a stake."

His sire's silvery laughter follows in the wake of his threat, reminding him of how empty it is in her eyes.

"Come on Damon, we both know I could rip you to shreds and do my nails at the same time. Don't tarnish your dignity with silly, useless threats. We are well past that, aren't we? "

Damon surprises himself by not lunging for her throat after that humiliating comment. Apparently, he now hates this woman enough to not allow her the satisfaction of dragging him even lower than he feels.

He smirks coldly instead. "Nice one. I might actually be offended if that reprimand came from anyone but _you_ ," he said, his eyes widening slightly. "Kept between us, I think you gave all your credibility up when you started chasing after my little brother like a _bitch_ in _heat_. It's gotta be sad when a man despises you so much he falls hard for your clone who happens to be your polar opposite, _in every way_."

Katherine's delicate chin trembles almost imperceptibly, and that's all the victory he can hope to achieve today, but it's enough. In fact, it's exhilarating.

At least until Katherine's lips lift in a coquettish grin, the one she always displays to deliver her best hits.

"Ouch, it seems my sweet, innocent Damon is all grown up now. Isn't it humbling how fast centuries pass by?"

"Whatever. I'm better at pointless stalling, Kat. Have you something not boring to add to this conversation? Because I have better to do than you."

Unexpectedly, the other vampire looks intrigued by his eagerness to end their meeting. Intrigued enough to completely bypass his intended insult, which was not a good omen by any means. "For _now._ "

She gives him another amused giggle, pushing a rebellious strand of her wavy chestnut hair behind her hair in a remarkably similar gesture to Elena's, and then she looks him up and down, transparently delighted.

It confuses him and it unnerves him, all the more because she knows how much he always hated to be the object of any joke. Something of his feelings must show through his façade of indifference, or perhaps she just knows the inner workings of his brain that well, because whatever reaction she imagines in him just spurs her on.

"You don't actually think it will last, do you? Jeremy says the witch blames you for everything wrong in her brief, inconsequential life. I'll take a wild guess and suggest that screwing you is part of her emo phase. Once that is done … goodbye clingy homicidal vampire, welcome nameless, sturdy jock number 2013."

Damon grits his teeth and realizes, with a twinge of overwhelming panic, that he can't mentally reach for his infamous emotional-switch.

_Why the fuck can't I…WHY AM I STILL FEELING EVERYTHING?_

He lets the panic subside, convincing himself that he doesn't need to switch anything off. He wants to rip Katherine Pierce's head off for even _thinking_ of Bonnie, when Bonnie is so much better than any of them that someone as corrupted as Katherine shouldn't be allowed to even soil her name by pronouncing it, indirectly or not.

He wants to rip Katherine apart but he _can_ control himself, and this is why he doesn't need any switch to make it easier.

"You were probably better off pursuing my cheap copy. I might even have helped you get her if you had asked nicely."

It's Damon's turn to laugh. It's a bitter, hollow laughter that echoes in the space between him and his ex-lover.

"Is _that_ why you're here? To push me toward Elena so you'll have a better shot at Stefan? You are even _crazier_ than the gossip would have us believe."

Perhaps that is her reason, or maybe all she wants is to create distance between him and Bonnie, maybe Katherine aims to kill two birds with one stone.

Either way, Damon is set on not playing into her back-stabbing hands. He's so _over_ being her bitch.

"Think what you will, Damon but I almost feel like I owe you something some days. Was I not more of a mother to you than the woman who gave birth to you? A mother has a right to worry for her children, especially when they spend years and years trying to prove to her how faithful they are. I appreciate your consistency enough to spare you a bit of wise advice. If you want to stop getting treated like a pet, stop settling for crumbs. Learn from your mistakes."

The last vestiges of his self-control crack at that last line, and his mind becomes nothing but a furnace of hatred and rage. He's on Katherine in a matter of seconds, slamming her to the wall, his hand around her throat.

She flatters her lower body against his, her visage perfectly composed and serene, a slight smirk unwavering on her glossed mouth.

Her brown eyes reflect a cool sort of contentment, and by contrast his mind recalls green eyes always so vibrant, whether they were burning with anger or alit with joy.

The image of them somehow gets the beast inside him subdued, and he literally throws Katherine's lithe body across the room. Naturally, she lands on her feet, her stance indicating she's ready for the fight.

Damon shakes his head and retracts his fangs, suddenly more angry with himself than he is with his sire. He was about to hand the damned bitch exactly what she wanted, _again_.

He turns his back on her and walks to the liquor cabinet again, going straight for his best bottle of bourbon without sparing her another glance: just looking at her makes him sick. The occasion deserves an appropriate toast, he thinks and he fills himself a shot.

"All you are is a waste of time. Of _my_ time, of _anyone_ 's time. I'm only sorry I've taken so long to see it."

To voice that thought is both liberating and emptying. An invisible weight has been lifted off his shoulders, but rather than feeling light he feels vacant, hollow.

_I'm 160 years old, and most of my existence was for nothing. The most of what has made me who I am was pointless._

For a moment he feels dazed, out of balance. He doesn't know why. Today has not taught him anything he didn't already know.

He wonders why Katherine is not attacking him, ending him. When the silence stretches by, he knows she is gone. He hurls his glass against the wall, the same wall he slammed Katherine against a little ago, just to appreciate the ugly sound of an empty glass breaking.

_That's a metaphor of my life if I've ever heard one._

Smirking at his joke, he drinks straight from the bottle, willing the alcohol to wash away the sensation of dirt this latter conversation bathed him in.

It's not long before he finds himself flying in his raven form toward the Gilbert house, vaguely anticipating sweet, innocuous Elena to undo the darkness Katherine has unleashed inside his heart. As if merely seeing Elena in all her humanity could make Katherine any less real.

But when he gets to circling her house, Elena is sitting on her porch, on Stefan's lap. They are drinking beer and laughing with Alaric and Jenna, talking of silly things. Jenna is passing around a burnt peach pie, and Alaric is making fun of her culinary skill. Stefan laughs as Jenna hits her boyfriend's shoulder in retaliation, jesting in kind. Elena puts her thin arms around Stefan's neck and pecks his cheek tenderly.

It's not the gesture of easy affection that makes Damon feel like he is suffocating, but the carefree expression on his brother's face. He has not seen Stefan so clearly happy since they were human, in their pre-Katherine era.

It strikes him violently that the laughter Stefan used to reserve for his big brother, for the thoughtless, father-free days they used to go fishing or hunting or riding, is now reserved for the _other_ family Stefan has found along the way.

For someone who has spent last century making Stefan as miserable as possible, Damon should not be either shocked or hurt. He's a bit of both.

* * *

Returning from a night out with Caroline, Bonnie enters her dark bedroom and turns on the lights to find a silent, hunched figure grouched on the floor, with his back leaning against her bed.

Her first reaction is surprise that she has become so used to his presence that her instincts no longer set her on alert where he is concerned.

Her second reaction is being disturbed by his continued immobility. Damon looks like a statue. A severely _depressed_ statue.

"Damon? You okay?"

"Just doing my part in the neighborhood watch. That's me, trusty bodyguard to all the fair maidens in need. Calm in a crisis."

He slurs very sentence in a string, looking stonily ahead, obviously intoxicated and sounding very much like a sullen kid.

"You're a funny drunk." She kneels down beside him, tilting his face toward hers so she can look into his blue eyes. They are too dull for her liking. He leans into her touch just a bit, for just a second before pushing her hand off his cheek.

"Where were you? It's pretty late."

"It's barely 11; 30 PM, daddy. It will sound unbelievable to you, but I still have friends outside our supernatural clique, and even if I hardly manage to see them anymore, they still talk to me."

"Great. Any boy friends I don't know yet?"

Bonnie gives up and sits down on the floor, close to her improvised guest, puzzled by the sudden suspicion in his tone.

"What's wrong with you tonight?"

"Are you trying to change subject?"

"Okay, first, there's no subject to speak of here. Second, I was out with Caroline, who felt neglected. Third…why are you upset with me?"

He looks at her for a long, undecipherable, intense minute before insisting: "I'm not upset with you."

"So you are just upset in general, and I just happen to be the lucky soul you take it out on?"

Damon stays silent, regarding her with an angry, predatory focus. She puts her hand on his forearm, squeezing gently. "Talk to me. Is it about Katherine?"

He chuckles, glancing down on her hand and shaking his head disbelievingly. "No, it's not. I…"

He drifts off, studying her worried expression like he is looking for some hidden clue behind it, then he continues with renewed fervor.

"You and me…what we've been doing here, _with each other_ , does it mean something?"

 _*Do_ _I_ _mean something to you? To anyone else? *_ the apparently random thought tumbles from his mind to hers, entirely by accident, but the sense of despair that echoes from it shakes the witch too much to let her wonder how it has happened.

"Damon…of course it does," Bonnie answers, uncertain about what had prompted his breakdown, but vehement about wanting to help him through it. "Everything you have done for me lately is important to me. _You_ are important to me. I don't know if I could have survived through all of this alone."

Instead of being pacified by her admission, as she hoped, Damon seems to grow even more agitated by it.

His features stiffen in anger, and he snarls, his gaze hard and accusing: "Yeah, I think you demonstrated your gratitude _plenty_."

Bonnie's fingers spark with a sudden electrical surge, jolting the vampire's flesh throughout his shirt in warning.

Damon growls menacingly in response, doing nothing but adding to the witch's rising temper.

"I don't appreciate the insinuation, and if I you think for one second that I'm going to put up with your belittling me just because you are pissed off, for reasons unknown to anyone but your dick of a self, you're dead wrong! I'm not anyone's punching bag!"

"Fine!" he snorts, looking away from her and reprising his very _mature_ previous occupation of staring at the wall.

"Fine!" she repeats, more softly, imitating his action.

It takes less than five minutes for them feel quite ridiculous, sitting side by side on the floor, glaring at anything but each other, but they are both stubborn, and neither of them wants to give in first.

Bonnie calms down first, her concern for him soon overpowering her headstrong pride, and a furtive glance to Damon's scowling profile convinces her to be the bigger person, even if her asshole of a vampire friend makes it so hard sometimes.

"Will you tell me why you're so on edge already?" she asks, striving to sound conciliatory.

"Does it matter?" he counters, scowling even harder straight ahead.

 _Do you regress to childhood every single time you are out of sorts or is it just the whiskey in your bloodstream? -_ she wants to snap back, badly, but years of dealing with Caroline Forbes in Bitchy Princess Mode have taught the witch to hold her tongue in situations like this one.

If Damon waited for her, if he is still here being difficult, it means he wants to talk about whatever is driving him into a frenzy. She mentally rewinds their brief talk to its beginning, trying to understand when she had set him off and why.

He had asked her if their bonding time had any value at all to her, and she had answered him to the best of her abilities. He had not liked what he had heard, obviously, even if she couldn't find anything wrong in the way she had attempted to verbalize her feelings.

"I care about you, asshole," Bonnie blurts, unpleasantly aware of the heat that rushes up to her cheeks as soon she has the chance to actually listen to herself. It sounded like a much more plausible reply, inside her head.

But strange as it is, her slip of tongue reaches through her companion, convincing him to turn toward her and face her warily.

He stares at her unblinkingly again for awhile before bending so he can hide his visage in the crook of her neck, against her loose hair. "Sometimes," he mumbles low in her ear, hesitating, his breath heavy and stinking like a brewery, "I will need to be reminded that it's real."

Damon stays like this, breathing her scent in and out in that not quite-comfortable position, and Bonnie has no idea what to do, say, or think.

So she goes with what feels natural and she strokes the side of his face, from his jaw to his temple, encouraged by his passive acceptance of her caresses. After awhile she takes a leap of faith and twists awkwardly around him so she can put her arms around his shoulders and hug him. She is unspeakably elated when he melts completely in her arms, his body pretty much falling on top of hers.

She pats his back, runs her fingers through his hair until there's nothing else left to do but hoist him up and into her bed.

They don't speak and they don't do anything to turn this into something cheap and sexual. They just nestle into her small bed and each other's embrace, legs entwined, occasionally running their hands on each other's sides or backs in small comforting touches.

She falls asleep to the sound of his breathing, contemplating how strange it is that vampires even have a breathing pattern, without knowing he fell asleep to the sound of her heartbeat, caught in a strange sense of peace.

The morning after Bonnie awakes to an empty bed, her sheets up to her chin. When her fingertips linger on the space Damon was supposed to be occupying, her mind plays with an image of him tucking her in before leaving.

She smiles a bittersweet smile into her pillow and closes her eyes once more, choosing to not question if she is making it up or not, determined to get back to sleep.

There's something going on between her and Damon Salvatore, and it would be silly to deny after the previous night. But she doesn't need to decide what it is right now.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie visits Grams, but the kind of help Spirits give is not always the kind you were waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: (1) is a direct quote from 'Together Again" by Dennis Jackson and Alice Best-Jackson

The cemetery is quiet as Bonnie Bennett walks through it, a thick book under her arm, her pace slow because she is not eager to reach her grandmother's gravesite.

This morning it's something she can no longer talk herself out of doing and although part of her feels she needs this, there's whole other part of her that just can't forgive herself for it.

The scent of grass is strong in the cool breeze hitting her face, and it's somehow a little comfort in the grave stillness of everything else surrounding he. A reminder that Life keeps prospering even among the very monuments of death.

She finds herself standing before the familiar gravestone all too soon, feeling the familiar knot in her throat, the familiar ache of longing in her soul.

"Hi, Grams." The young witch kneels down, putting down the book with a deep sigh, her fingers caressing its worn cover lovingly. "I have something to return to you. I haven't forgotten our traditions."

A witch's grimoire, according the Witches' Law is to be burned at her funeral, since a witch's knowledge is supposed to survive solely through her heirs. Bonnie held back because she had still a lot to learn at first, and then because letting go was just too hard.

And now, now that she has finished mastering and then copying down in _her_ grimoire all of Grams' spells, now that she is about to attempt her first ritual of her creation, she has run out of excuses to delay this. It would probably be wise to destroy Emily's grimoire too, but today is not Emily's day, however Bonnie might wish otherwise.

"I'm sorry I'm late, but I still miss you so much, every day. You were my rock, and I wanted so badly to feel you closer to me. This book helped me. Sometimes I brushed my fingers against the pages just to sense the ghost of your touch."

She stops, blinking hard to stop the tears gathering in her eyes, and breathes out shakily, willing the hurt to stay buried deep inside her and at the same time longing to finally be cleansed of it.

"I never wanted to disappoint you Grams; I need you to know this. I've learnt all I could from you, I kept the town safe for you but…everything is upside down now. I tried so hard to hate them, to keep the right and the wrong apart. I needed so badly for things made sense again, even if it made me bitter. But I'm tired of being angry and I'm tired of being alone. I don't feel alone when Damon is with me and I know it doesn't undo the evil he has done and I don't fool myself in thinking he is going become a whole other person but… he has been good to me. We are good to take care of each other…"

Bonnie breaks off, furiously wiping away the tears that are sliding down her cheeks. She can't believe she is practically begging her dead grandmother for some kind of absolution, after the ugly things she has done, and especially after letting Damon in her heart.

"I don't want to betray you, Grams, but…"

But she is tired of hating, and in the end Damon is here whereas Grams will not ever be again. It hurts so much, but she needs to let go. Yet, is not letting go like letting Grams die all over again?

"I need you to forgive me and I need you tell me it's fine to… move on. Please, one more time…tell me what I need to do. Tell me I'm not doing it all wrong… Please, I can't do this without you."

She half-expects to see Grams' frowning ghost appear, wanting to argue her case. Bonnie would welcome it. She desperately wants to see her elder a last time to apologize, beg, even fight to defend her reasons.

But nothing happens, and it feels like a moral slap in the face, a rejection louder than any screams of condemnation the ghost could have addressed to her. Bonnie rocks slightly, bracing herself to resist the fresh onslaught of tears but then the breeze stirs, pulling her hair away from her visage, and it feels loving, like Grams' caresses when she was a child.

She leans instinctively into the invisible touch, and although she cannot feel it on her skin, there's a sensation of warmth that wraps around her and just squeezes. It lasts barely a moment and then it's gone, but the breeze flips the grimoire open, its pages turning until any presence Bonnie sensed was gone.

Bonnie learns forward and checks the section the book has been opened to… it's the entry Grams had written on her wedding day, and half of the writing is just the musings of a girl deeply in love. Bonnie had read it before and just remembers feeling deeply embarrassed at the blatantly sexual nature of a few of the passages regarding the 'joining' of her grandparents. This time, she reads more carefully, trying to get how those notes could be related to her current situation.

It's the final conclusion that strikes her dumb, despite her determination to understand the message her Grams meant for her to have:

_"In finding that other half, we enhanced the person we each had already become. That is an important part of knowing that you have truly connected with your twin soul. The partnership is not a completion, but an enhancement of who you already are. You are already perfect! Your twin soul brings to the relationship whatever energy is needed to empower you to create your own choices and realize your dreams, and is there to celebrate with you when they happen! Twin souls are mirrors of each other; they are not an exact duplication."(1)_

Her mind runs back to all of her confrontations with Damon, to how their hostile banter used to make her feel bolder than she usually was, to how she used to feel like she just _had_ to keep him in line. She remembers how much stronger she felt when they discussed their strategy, how empowered their training sessions made her.

But she considers how he has always behaved with her since they met –always a touch more real than he was with Elena- and that was not always for the best. With _her_ , he's been at his most aggressive, intimidating, imposing and grating… and also at his most honest.

But it's _impossible_ , that she and Damon are Twin Whatevers…and Bonnie is not buying that Grams would actually encourage her to pursue anything with a serial murderer.

"You gotta be kidding me," she mutters, closes the book, and is startled when it goes up into flames.

_Did I do that or …?_

She shakes off the thought, rising abruptly to her feet.

"Bye, Grams," she says, wiping her hands on her jeans nervously and with that, she rushes home as dignifiedly as possible, forcing her mind to stay blank.

* * *

By the time she got home, she had managed to calm herself down. By refusing to consider the little omen from the Above Realms in even the slightest way. She decides, glaring at the plates she finds gathered in the sink, that all that matters is that Grams doesn't hate her.

So she turns on the radio, gets some dishwashing liquid and works off her tension, intensely scrubbing the dishes.

It seems to work adequately enough until Mariah Carey's single fades away in favor of The Frames' old success, 'Seven Day Mile'.

The intro is slow and melancholic, suiting her mood and she sways slightly to the song, allowing herself to get lost in the music, following the lyrics intently enough to keep at bay her dark thoughts.

' _Your will changes everyday  
It's a road you've come upon  
I can't help you if you want to  
Down here nothing gets a chance  
It's a threat that's real enough  
We can burn this bridge or stay here._

_It's a breeze everlasting like time  
Making so sure that  
I can return just to see it from your side again'_

She stops swaying, caught unaware by a strange feeling, like she is being told something but also very ready to shut it out and focuse again on the plate in her hands.

' _Always never seems to work  
It's a word you never learned  
I don't really see a way clear  
It's a sea ever churning in tides  
In the sureness of time  
And our words will repeat now forever again._ _'_

Irrationally unnerved, Bonnie telekinetically reaches to switch the radio off. She did not want to think of Twin Souls, Karma, or souls finding each other across various incarnations to help each other fulfill their destiny. Because they had _nothing_ to do with her and Damon, _not at all_. It freaks her out beyond words when the radio just switches back on again, _all by itself_.

' _Well this might take a while to figure out  
So don't you rush it  
And hold your head up high right through the doubt  
'Cause it's just a matter of time  
You've been running so fast  
It's the seven day mile  
Has you torn in-between here and running away_ _'_

Bonnie switches the damn thing back to off, stubborn. She is a bit disappointed when the radio doesn't rebel again. Maybe it was just a fluke.

Suddenly put off of doing anything domestic, the young witch finishes her dishes hurriedly and marches up to her bedroom, that mild irritation and anxiety still bubbling up in the back of her mind.

There is a bouquet on her bed. She takes it, half-fearing that it is from Jeremy or Katherine and half-knowing it's not. White tulips are not exactly what she can picture Jeremy or Katherine picking. They are beautiful and smell sweet.

A small red card peeks among them: _'Thank You'_ is written in capital letters but Damon's handwriting is still very much recognizable.

She would have never pegged him as the flower-giving type, and she is the slightest bit touched that she was wrong.

"You win," she chuckles as the petals tickle her nose, and she has no idea whether she is talking to Damon or to her Grams, but she can't deny the butterflies in her stomach.

She had given up on ever feeling something that innocent again.

The shadow of a laughter that hovers in the air for just a moment before dissolving feels like a goodbye.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie and Damon enjoy a bit of fluff, and the calm before the storm strikes.

 

It won't be the last time Damon Salvatore seeks wisdom from the bottom of a bottle. There's something about the cleansing quality of liquor that the vampire truly loves: you drink enough and your mind will wander in places your lucid self would utterly forbid it to go. As someone who doesn't have an easy time being sincere with himself, especially when it matters most, Damon is grateful for the supernatural resistance of his liver.

For once he is not drinking because he is unhappy, or bored, or hungry. He's drinking to preserve the sparkling good mood he enjoyed since this morning. Waking in Bonnie's bed, with her pliant, fragile, warm body half-draped over his, he felt the most rested he had in decades. His first impulse, he remembers, was not to leave her, but to wake her with teasing caresses and heated murmurs. Then the events of the previous night had caught up with him, and he knew he had to leave, because Bonnie would want to _talk about it_ , and talking just is not _his thing_.

He thinks back to the carefulness he had used in prying her off him before sneaking away, and not before having tucked her in, his gaze lingering appreciatively on her sleeping face.

That never used to be his thing either.

Yet, thinking of her had made him all relaxed and light-hearted all day long, so much that he just had to buy her _flowers._

Something unusual, classy and flawless, to prove to the witch how highly he thought of her: white tulips seemed like the obliged choice.

Bonnie Bennett is the most pure, fierce, noble thing he has ever been allowed to hold in his grasp and this makes Damon a little in awe and a little scared as well, for _her,_ this girl who trusts him and even _cares_ after seeing the very worst of his character. After seeing him hurting the people she loves so protectively.

She has seen nothing but the evil in him for so long that knowing she sees the good now too, and without idealizing him by any means, reassures him he must really have something decent inside for her to appreciate.

And this, in turn, makes him want to shower the little witch with gifts. Treat her like a lady, because she is a wondrous, heroic creature and doesn't even know it.

He wants to touch her too, of course, but he doesn't want it to happen when she is miserable anymore. Next time he kisses her, he wants to see her green eyes bright with contentment and not glassy with unshed tears. And he wants a lot of next times too.

This is how Damon comes to the terrifying realization that, for the first time in his life, he is considering the pursuit of a woman who has no romantic interest in his brother. With Elena and Katherine the greater obstacle to having them was always Stefan, and the path to them was pretty much clearly to outdo the competition. With Bonnie, and their friends-with-occasional-benefits arrangement he does not know how to proceed. His experience is wide and varied when it comes to successfully gaining free blood and sex, but is drastically reduced concerning the courting of a woman's heart. Not to mention that he's not exactly been blessed with good luck in his last two attempts.

Women had the funny habit of either jumping in his bed with heartfelt declarations of love when he wanted nothing more than being free of them, or stringing him along without any real interest if he felt more than lust.

_But Bonnie is different._

Different enough to not take him seriously if he ever ….

 _Time to raise the stakes –_ Damon concludes smugly with a last toast to himself.

* * *

' _The oldest Legends in the history of Witchcraft say that when the World was generated by the Sacred Joining of Our Lord and Lady, souls were created in groups. There is much confusion about soul mates and twin souls. Very often these two terms have been used as synonymous. They are not synonymous. One can and does have many soul mates but one has only one twin soul. In order to understand how these terms come about one must begin from the beginning. Eons ago, many souls or sparks of divinity were discharged from the Divine Source. These were destined to be human souls. Soul mates are from a unique group that was discharged eons ago from the Source. Love draws them together lifetime after lifetime so they can help each other grow; so they can nourish each other on their spiritual journey, and so they keep finding each other as friends, lovers, or as a family. There's between them the deep connection that comes from a long, loving acquaintance._

_Each soul is supposed to experience everything in the universe before its return to the source. It is impossible for a single soul to do this. Therefore, the scheme of group soul has been formulated in order that each soul can go out and experience as much as possible, but there is no necessity for each to gather_ _ all _ _the experiences. When they finally assemble together they would have accumulated and aggregated enough knowledge and wisdom for the whole group, as the sum of the total cargo would be adequate for the entire group to pass the test. The total experience and knowledge is assimilated by all and sundry and therefore every soul in the group would be just as knowledgeable as the whole group._

_The second point in the function of the grouping is the return. Alone, the single soul cannot find its way back to the Source. They can only find their way back when joined as the original group._

_Twin Souls are different, because they are the very last two souls to part from each other at the time of their birth: like Isis and Osiris, they shared the same Divine Womb, and are each other's yin and yang. A twin soul is not a soul cut into half, but has every ingredient to be a whole individual. However, as the Twins have shared the same pod for the entire journey downward towards the physical earth that attachment and longing for each other is always there in the subliminal consciousness. The incessant throbbing of desire for the other twin is never far beneath the subconscious. It becomes more and more cogent when the soul nears the heightened state of enlightenment. In other words, as soon as we become humans we have been working and practicing to achieve the ideal state to merge with our twin._

_While_ _Soul Mates are a spiritual family, Twin Flames are mirrors of each other: complementary opposites, but also strongly similar in the way they feel and experience the world. Twin Souls balance each other's energies and are therefore part of the universal law of Sacred Balance. Like day and night, male and female, life and death, they reflect each other even in their dissimilarities._ _'_

Bonnie closes the 'Twin Souls, Soulmates, and Soul Mastery' heavy tome with a loud snap. She cringes silently at the idea that she ever talked herself into borrowing the book from Grams' library. Honestly, all of this overtly sentimental speculation on Soul-Twins seems more like the fitting definition of Stefan and Elena's destiny than something that could EVER be applied to her and Damon.

Which is fine with her, completely, since Bonnie has never been a fatalistic type of girl. She likes the idea that she has the control of her story, witch or not.

She may or may not have romantic feelings for Damon, but the concept of them being predestined since the Beginning of Time is frankly a whole other, terrifying mess.

Just because Grams believed in that fantasy drivel, it doesn't mean she has to share that belief.

**The day after**

Damon's shiny black car parks in front of her house, and Bonnie sees it coming from her window, her feet refusing to move until he stopped right there, under her window, where she could look down and see him perfectly well. He waves at her, shit-eating grin on his lips and she feels her stomach knotting. It's the first she has seen of him since that night, and she gathers from the bouquet she has received and his subsequent, purposeful avoidance of her that he has no desire to revisit the subject. She is not altogether sure if she should respect it or press the issue, and her confused emotions are of no help.

Because while she is slightly timorous of how Damon Salvatore handles exposure and of his brutal tactics of self sabotage, she is also embarrassingly excited to see him.

Still, for her dignity's sake, she takes her time in coming down to greet him, shutting out the small inner high-schooler voice that would incite her to rush in her bathroom to check on her hair.

When she opens the door, his grin has not dimmed. There's a large carton box in his arms, with its top open. It shakes slightly in his hold.

"Little Witch, I have something for you," he says, all too enthusiastically for her liking.

"What is it?" Bonnie asks, a hint of amused suspicion in her tone as she tries to peek in. Unsuccessfully so since Damon just hollers past her and into the house, pushing her back slightly before laying the box on the kitchen's table.

"Once upon a time," the vampire begins conspiratorially as an explanation, grasping gently the girl's shoulder to hold her back from his present. "I used to bone this very cool soccer mom. She was absolutely obsessed with cats, she had about fifteen of them..."

"It sounds like the beginning of another horror story…"

"Hush, Neurotic One. Her favorite breed was…"

"I'm not neurotic-"

"Holy Jesus, do you want to let me finish once -"

Their discussion comes at an abrupt halt when a small furry head peeks out of the box, revealing the presence of an additional, strange, non-human creature in the room.

Bonnie is a bit stunned at first as she nears the table to look at _it_ better. She has never seen something like that before.

It looks like a freaky crossing between a cat and a pixie: the creature has a triangular head, huge and inquisitive amber eyes, _really huge_ ears and a small, muscular body. Its fur is a sable shade, darkening to chocolate brown on its tail, muzzle and ears. This would be E.T. if ET was born a cat. In other words: _adorable_ , in the weirdest meaning of the term.

Damon clears his throat self-consciously, not knowing what to do with her silence: "Odd as it might look, she's a real a cat and not an alien. It's a Devon Rex: small thing, packed with energy and appetite, with an unhealthy obsessive attachment to its human owners. It reminded me of someone I know."

Bonnie's glance to him is puzzled. "I hope she's not Stefan's takeout lunch" she says out loud, thinking instead _'I hope she is not a gift for Elena, because, if it is, I might just have to punch you hard '_.

With Damon Salvatore, you never know what you are getting. He might just be pissed enough about going all emotional on her last night to give a cat to her best friend when hers just went _poof_ , just as a twisted method of reestablishing boundaries.

Damon laughs, blue eyes shining. "Oh, she is all yours. I hope she can work where Finn did not. You know, for that spell of yours. It sounded like it could be your type of cat."

"Oh."

For the life of her, Bonnie has no idea how to come up with something smarter than that. She feels warm all over and it's so distracting…

"You didn't compel someone to give her out, did you?"

"I did _not_ ," Damon scoffs with a smug expression. "I knew you would never accept her otherwise. It was a regular purchase, and you are not allowed to refuse. I consider this my personal way of investing into your career. If she works as your familiar, I get a right to 30% of your future spell-workings."

"Just a humble30 %? I'm surprised you're learning the art of moderation," the with chuckles, hesitatingly patting the 3 months old kitten on her head and beaming when the little monster began rubbing against her palm, after sniffing her curiously a little bit.

Finn was _never_ so friendly with strangers.

"I like throwing you off your game once in awhile," Damon replies casually, eyeing the scene with interest when Bonnie grows bold enough to take the new kitten in her arms. He had hoped that his gift would win him some points with the witch and it looks like she is warming up to it.

"She is so incredibly _cute_. And soft and warm too," Bonnie gushes, a little embarrassed, and he has to make an effort not to add a lewd ' _Just like you'_ and move in to nibble on her neck like he has been pining to do since _ages._

The witch smells so delicious and he wants to grab her and feel her body against his so badly that he can nearly taste it, but he has promised himself to be more restrained with her from today on. He doesn't need Bonnie getting some misguided idea about him wanting her just to satisfy his _appetites._

Despite his frustration with himself, it's somehow uplifting to hear Bonnie giggling when the kitten sneaks her nose under the witch's armpit and starts purring like a chainsaw. He feels a little proud that he can give to this girl a deserved break from the drama.

"Does she already have a name?"

"I don't remember."

"Typical," Bonnie shrugs, running her fingers lovingly over her new pet's back. "I think I'm going to call her Freya," she decides impulsively. It is the name of a Nordic Love Goddess, a protector of cats. Maybe it would bring to all of them a slice of the good luck they so desperately need lately.

"Whatever," Damon replies, sounding studiously uninterested, but it just makes Bonnie smile more and inch casually toward him. She is more than a little disappointed when he doesn't take advantage of their newfound proximity to drop a kiss on her throat or jaw.

"The dark moon is coming soon. It feels so strange to know that in a couple of days everything will be irreversibly changed."

Her eyes never leave the little beast in her arms as she braves breaking the comfortable silence.

"Afraid still? I'm going to give you my blood as a precaution."

She shakes her head, smiling at the confidence behind her vampire's offer. "I'm not afraid of that. I'm afraid of everything that will come next. We kept a lot of secrets from Stefan and Elena in those months. Doing this behind their backs is paramount to giving up their trust for Gods-know-how-long."

It truly scares her, imagining a life without Elena. Losing both a sister and a dear friend so soon after giving up Grams forever is not something she can ever entirely accept. It's too destabilizing, despite their differences of opinion about certain matters.

"They will get over it once we send Katherine back to the Hell she belongs in."

"Do you think so, really? Aren't you even a bit worried that your friendship with Elena will never recover from this hit? It wasn't so long ago that it seemed like you were ready to die for her."

"Mmmm, beside the fact that my _friendship_ with her was never quite based on trust, I can't say I had such a high esteem of my life just then. I'm all better now."

Bonnie doesn't reply to that, just keeps cooing at Freya softly, and for some reason it quite bothers Damon. Last thing he wants is for Bonnie to keep thinking that he carries a torch for her bestie.

"I don't know what the thing with Elena was, Bonnie. I just know it's over."

It was not Love; he knows that with near overwhelming certainty now. You can't love a woman with half-a-heart if the other half is still numb from loss. Or at least it was not the real, lasting kind of love.

It's hard to accept, because it had felt so real for him at the time. Wanting Elena, caring for Elena…half-hoping that Elena could fix him, the way she had fixed Stefan, all while feeling in his gut that she was Stefan's other half.

Funny thing, now that he could not feel that sort of nostalgic longing Elena used to wake inside his dead heart anymore, he almost could not remember her beyond the idealized version he had built inside his head.

He did not really know Elena as a person, apparently. He was willing to admit he had not tried very hard.

Finally Bonnie looks up to him, her wide green eyes looking for something inside him.

"Okay," she nods at last, and Damon knows she believes him from the hopeful tilt of her smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are wondering, Devon Rex are real and Wiccan Sources were exploited on the explaining of the 'Twin Souls concept'.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ritual and momentous change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always troubled me that I left this story unfinished two chapters away from the planned conclusion, but as canon and my perception of characters shifted, I was kinda afraid to return to the story. Recent requests for me to finish it convinced me that maybe it was worth to reread whole the tale and recapture the original concept to draw the finale SG deserved. I hope I handled it, even if this was unbetaed and it was long time since my last dabbling in this fandom.

**CHAPTER 18**

**_Two weeks later._ **

It’s 3.00 AM when they begin. 

They meet at the back of a cemetery at the outskirts of the town – hallowed ground, touched by Death, strongly connected to Mystic Falls’ ancestors. Jeremy comes by gratingly late, sliding out of the shadows while Damon and Bonnie are sniping at each other about where exactly drawing the circle. Tiny Freya, that has been utterly inseparable from her mistress side since their first meeting, is quietly observing them both with huge, starry eyes from her comfy spot in Bonnie’s bag , her head pocking out and sneaking back in at regular intervals.

The younger vampire immediately slides a napkin with a streak of Katherine’s sire blood out of his pocket, body language so tense than he looks like might jump out of his skin at any moment, hooded eyes reflecting eagerness and antsy-ness and the usual hint of teenager aganst . 

“Are we ready?”

He looks at Bonnie like the wrong answer might undo him, and Damon wants to push him out of principle.

_Surely, I didn’t look quite so desperate when it was my turn , did I_? 

“We will be.”

Bonnie concedes blankly, drawing her ceremonial blade out of her bag, turning the white, lacy cloth on its other side, splaying it wide around the back of Jeremy’s lager hand before going in to cut the center of his palm.

Jeremy pushes up into the blade without a sound, watches with a bit too much interest while the blood trickles down until Bonnie shifts to dry it so the napkin is smeared with parallel twin chrisom streaks on each side. 

_Another masochist in the making, this one._

“Do I even want to know how you got that blood out of Katherine’s notice without raising suspicions?”

Admittedly, he had his own doubts that the boy could manage it, in the beginning . Even tonight, with the slight delay and all the nefarious considerations that could come out of it, he had been almost sure he and Bonnie would be forced to go for a plan B.

Jeremy’s voice, when he answers, is just a bit too coy for his liking.

“I used to have some interest in hacking and surveillance equipment. I set an hidden micro-camera in each room of house when she was out, then I simulated a panic attack and I convinced her that I didn’t trust her to have for real the vial she had claimed having unless I saw it. Obviously she would have not allowed me to see where she kept it hidden all on her own. ”

Bonnie’s face scrunches up in revulsion, because obviously she didn’t miss the creep factor in this equation, but she says nothing, just getting her little cat out of her bag and cradling her in her arms.

Freya sniffs at the air around Jeremy, neck stretching forward as her tail goes straight and waving like a dog’s.

Jeremy just stares back at the beast. “What is that?”

“My familiar. I trained her to help.”

Bonnie sounds so proud of that, standing up a bit straighter, a bit brighter, despite the dire situation, that Damon just feels proud of himself in turn.  
And he can read into Jeremy’s expression that the loser is going to say something to ruin that feeling, so he shuts him up before he can, by diverting attention elsewhere.

“Are you sure *she* didn’t pick on anything?”

Katherine, after all, had always trusted only Katherine.

“Sure as I can be. And I know nobody tailed me tonight.”

“Jeez, that’s reassuring.”

“Let’s just hurry up.” Bonnie interrupts what promised to be a quite promising pissing contest, with a wave of her hand and a stern glare aimed to both of them.

Damon tries to shrug the tension off as he follows her into night and among gravestones, Jeremy behind him, without much success. He is afraid for her if he allows himself to feel, to focus on what is going to happen . It has been so long since last time he had anything to lose, and this looks too much like one of those instances where it all seems like life will hand you something that is not a lemon, just to take it back at last second possible, the worst way possible.

And it looks too much like the night Bonnie lost Sheila too.

_Karma is such a bitch_.   
\--  
It goes like this: Bonnie draws a circle spilling sea salt on the ground , just large enough for her to sit in, Freya trailing after her faithfully, then climbing her shoulder and settling there like a cute, attentive sentinel when the witch actually crosses her legs and sits.

He and Jeremy keep watch from distance as she chants her greetings to the Ancestors that keep the town, the nature spirits residing in the territory, the spirits that keep the doors between death and life, the ‘Lords of the Underworld’ and, finally, the Moirae that rule over everyone’s fates.  
There’s a lot of listing honorific titles and spreading gratitude’s for whatever reason, and Damon has a terrible time at trying to stay still and relatively patient.

_Respect is important for the spirits,_ Bonnie has explained to him more than once, but from where he is standing it seems a lot like the arse-kissing he had no talent for when he was alive. Not that he would say anything of the sort to his witch’ face, _ever._

It irks him considerably that Jeremy, instead, is drinking up every word and every ritual gesture with rapt attention.

Offerings of food and drink and flowers of whatever symbolic meaning were left at the four corners of the cemetery, in correspondence to the four cardinal points – there’s a long and elegantly worded plea for the spirits to accept the gifts.

_Still looks like a bribe to me._ He thinks, looking around for anything suspicious or unusual. It’s all right and dandy for a witch to trust those so called ‘Powers’, but he personally hates to leave someone he cares about in their hands. Hands he can’t break if anything goes awry. 

_I am officially more useless than a fucking cat. I have never contemplated * the idea* I was going to see the day it happened_. 

There’s a certain cold, icy feeling in the air when the Ancestors of the town seemingly accept the gifts and lend their support to the ritual, like a cool, invisible cloak that closes in and covers everything, gives him a sort of hitching he can’t scratch out … Jeremy too feels the same if the way he twitches suddenly means anything at all.

But, for the rest, Damon notices nothing that might indicate things are going good or ill.

Bonnie keeps humming prayers, eyes drifting shut in concentration, face up to the sky. Freya is unnaturally still, curled around her witch ‘ neck, mewling it is like a cat’s version of weeping at certain points.  
It’s creepy as the fuck, and he does not understand the logic behind any part of it. For all that is not the first time Damon witnessed a Ritual, he can’t remember ever feeling this way about it.

There’s a moment Bonnie places the Hand in her lap, forces the stained napkin between two wrinkly, yellow fingers, and places the artifact on the ground. She stares right ahead, right through Damon, and he feels it in his bones that this is not the girl he knows, the girl he fought and fucked and kissed and liked.

She is something more. And she is too, something ‘Other’ than him, something ‘Other’ than vampire or human or wolf. She is something that can, for perhaps just a moment, be filled with God. To carry through the threshold the essence of Things wilder and older than time, that might stretch her like a glove and then shatter her, throw her away like she is nothing, because for Them she might just be that.

Somewhere inside him he has always known, in theory, but oh, he never understood what it really, truly entailed. Never wanted to, probably, because the truth is terrifying … and it is the one thing he will be never able to protect her. She is *this*. A carrier of energies, of Powers far greater and harsher and crueler than her tiny, breakable body. 

Like her being mortal was not enough of a concern in a town like this one.  
It strikes him then, the depth of the courage and the faith and the trust and the sheer dedication it takes for her to give herself over so completely, but also the strength and the will and the confidence that will take to drive out and keep in check those very forces she invited inside herself.

He watches her speaking strings of Greek and Gaelic to the rising winds and he feels like he has already failed her before even beginning to prove his value as potential boyfriend to her. He is the key that opened the door to this moment, to this danger, maybe… but this girl was already doomed by her bloodline, by her very nature … to make something of her life that is going to be way more dangerous and way more important, probably, that anything he ever thought of doing with his.

It frankly terrifies him.

He feels very strongly, at that precise moment, that to stand in the way would be to lose her, and that to try protecting her without stifling her will be the hardest thing he has ever attempted in a century, considering both his nature and hers.

_  
Caring about you, Bonnie Bennett, is going to be the trip of a lifetime. Because I *am* going to have your back, whether you send me on my way or not._

She raises her thin arms up, and her body clenches and releases in turns like she is a gun ready to fire … and she is that, too, he understands, as suddenly, with a brutal stab of a perfect clarity, he becomes aware of who and what she is going to become, someday, whether he is there to see it or not: a weapon and a martyr, somebody’s hero and somebody else ‘ curse and danger.

There’s lights blooming somewhere at his left, Jeremy grunting something Damon does not care to register … his eyes and attention are, right now and here, only for *her*.

This witch that shifted his perception of the world in the blink of an eye, this girl whose hands are moving in the air drawing shapes he doesn’t know the first thing about, but that are changing some version of reality anyway, somehow. He doesn’t care about the specifics in the slightest because he knows exactly what is happening.

Here and now, Damon Salvatore is seeing Bonnie Bennett.

And he is falling in love.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna returns, along with few other familiar faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has now a fanmix: http://m.8tracks.com/queenofcups/sacred-geometry-a-soundtrack
> 
> Check it out! It contains all of the songs mentioned in previous chapters and alot of character and thematic songs

**CHAPTER 19**

She comes awake with lightening pouring through her heart, electricity running all along her skin, burning, crawling, _branding_. It feels like coming alive at once, like walking straight out of a dream and into the real world.

It feels … like being born. Again?

At first she doesn’t remember. Her mind is a blank, candid space – a peaceful space that registers only the way the rustling wind is so loud in her ears (like a scream, like storm is brewing).

Then there’s the memory of fire, ugly, frightening, demeaning. The ghost of the awareness that she was _ending_ and it was the wrong time, because she still wanted so much… her mother, Jeremy, a life with them in this modern time … but Mother was already gone, was not? All those things she wanted were all already gone from her grasp, and this time there was no second chance to get anything and anyone back.

The memory of those thoughts sparks a lucid, new awareness.

_I am Anna. Annabelle Payne, daughter of Pearl. I am a vampire from the Original Line. I was burned. How I am not… gone?_

Her eyes wander in the space around and above – nothing she recognizes, but oh, her skin still burns, and her squeezes like it should be beating, except she is dead, undead, and her heart has been still in her chest for so many years already.

_I am in pain. I lack… something._

_“_ Anna!”

She turns abruptly toward the direction the voice came from.

She knows the pale angular face that reaches fast her sight, but the familiarity she feels with the tall, muscular body that soon envelopes her is only distant. An unwelcome thing.

Still, when lost, overly eager blue eyes meet hers, it gives her a bit of comfort.

“ Ben? ”

It _should_ be his name.

Her childe (because this she feels with certainty born from her blood calling to his blood and her scent under his scent, he is _hers,_ made from her, although not with love or lust or anything but the sheer necessity of a moment) smiles wide and confident and bright.

_Just like a puppy his master just bothered petting._

“How am I alive?”

He asks like she should have the answer and, naturally, since he died way before her, if her fractured memory is any good, it is likely he is assuming *she* is to blame for his presence here. Anywhere *here* is.

But she is not. Right?

It’s strange to take anything as certain , given how off-kilter she feels.

“You know where we are?”

She demands, schooling her expression into hard, determined indifference.

_Never let a newbie suspect they might be in control or at advantage._

It reassures her, that at least _some_ lessons she learned are still there at her fingertips.

 _Ben_ nods promptly, beams like he expects a cookie for a correct answer, like it is a test he has already passed with flying colors.

“Right behind the family crypts of the founders. Mystic Falls cemetery. I just… _sprouted_ from the ground like a vegetable. Fuckin’ cool.”

“Wonderful.” She smiles, keeping it bland and not committal, rubbing her wrists because it _burns,_ the way it would if something moved beneath her skin and fought to get out _._

He notices. His eyes follow the movement with a spark of interest she dislikes. “You feel it, too?”

“What?”

“The-”

“Anna!”

The moment she hears her name spoken, this time, the recognition is immediate, and everything else fades because nothing else matters.

“Mother?!”

Arms, beloved arms this time, a scent of water-lilies she grew up with, envelop her in a blur.

“How is this possible?” she asks, without really caring about the answer, because it is a downright miracle, to have this reunion a second time.

“You didn’t-”

“No, I … I was put down right after you were -”

“Wait… what?” Ben echoes her, stepping closer, confusion clear in his voice as in his visage.

A slightly taller black boy, comes to stand between him and the two women, halting his progress without a word.

Anna recognizes him as her mother’s childe, Harper.

_Okay, things are just getting stranger here._

And her skin keeps hitching. Her muscles feel sore too, and slightly twitchy. Her feet ache to just move, and move again.

_After-effect of being … back?_

“Anna? Who is this boy?”

“I sired him when I was still trying to get you out from the Tomb. He died before you could meet him.”

Mother and daughter just look at each other for a long, heavy moment, tacitly conveying their understanding of whatever little facts they had on their situation.

Four dead vampires brought back to life on the same night, all of them of the same bloodline.

An icy, eerie sort of calm seems to settle over Pearl as she separates herself from her daughter and places herself between her and the two other, younger vampires. Taking implicitly the command with a natural ease that makes Anna feel instantly better – this is the mother she knows, the mother she is proud of, the mother that never let her down.

“Then we are looking for a necromancer, and we are likely to be under his or her control. We were all dead before tonight, and we are from the same blood. Only blood magic could have brought us back … it is unlikely for anyone to be able to gain access to the one who sired me without his consent, and it’s even less likely for anyone to have gained his blood without his command. If we are fortunate, it is by his will that we are here now. ”

_Yet Mother, it’s one thing for your sire to want me and you back in pocket, but Harper and Ben?_

The doubt that rises now in her had to be rising in her mother as she pronounced those words, Anna is sure of it.

Niklaus Mikaelson sees himself as an emperor and an entrepreneur at the same time. The vampire mob that controls New Orleans and the cities around is all his. He might maybe think the time he once wasted having Pearl trained by his brother Elijah is worth a resurrection … and Anna is good at controlling animals and possessing them at distance too, a rare ability within the line. They are both old blood. Pearl was Elijah’s lover too, at some point, although it was no grand romance and Anna was kept mostly _not_ privy at most of that affair.

Harper was just Pearl’s underling, and he was entombed before Pearl had the chance to present him officially to the Original family. No reason the brother should even know about him, since Anna has not mentioned him to them in the long years after.

Ben… it is not even a question mark, at this point. Nobody would intentionally resurrect a newbie.

The Originals aren’t sloppy or prone to leave anything to chance. Especially when it comes to the witches they employed. This situation looks less and less like something they might be behind.

And her mother has to know it too, because she adds.

“But in case we are not fortunate, let’s be on our toes. Trust your senses : what do they say?”

“Anna and I feel scratchy” Ben replies right away, and for all that Anna wants to snap and put him back into his place, she has to admit he is right.

“It feels warm and itchy since I … came about.”

 _Sprouting from the hearth like a vegetable_ , Ben called it, but it did not feel like it to her. More like… popping in from nothingness, growing solid at such a fast pace that everything shook, from yes, the hearth. Hearth that pushed her out like it didn’t want her. Like she didn’t belong to it.

“I might agree with that.” Harper joins in.

“I wouldn’t exactly disagree, either.” Pearl admits, pressing her lips together like she does when she looking inward, reaching for the prescience she shares with Elijah.

“It is the magic, is not? It must be. It is … calling to us?”

Anna does not feel any good about it, no matter how happy she is to be alive and with her mother again. She wants back the control of her body, thanks much.

“It binds us to the spell-caster, most likely.” Pearl reflects.

“Let’s kill him.”

Ben jumps right at it, once more outing himself as someone who will need a very short leash to work as minion.

“Anna!”

_Jeremy?_

Suddenly she can’t say a word. Jeremy is here, coming toward her, smelling like her … like a childe, like a lover, like he is hers, _properly_ , now. He took the vial. He killed himself to become like her. He _chose_ her, a lifetime, a century, one year or one day, whatever it can come, _with her_.

It was what she hoped, what she wanted so badly before, before she … died or whatever, and now she has it. Has _him_. Him and her mother and she is as alive as she will ever be and _everything is possible ,_ once more.

Happiness is a shiver that takes over completely. She clutches at him before she can realize what she is doing. He moves the hair away from her face prudently, almost reverently, and it’s the gravity in his eyes that tells her, more than a thousand words or reasons or even his presence there.

*Jeremy* accomplished this. He saved her, reunited her with her mother, opened that closed door on all their futures. He did this because he _loves_ her.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Night above Mystic Falls just gets darker. You did not think Katherine was resting on her laurels, did you?

**Chapter 20**

Katherine Pierce loves, loves, loves being herself. Any time, any day. But ,on nights like this one? She loves it just a tad more.

It’s that special hit of adrenaline that reaches its zenith when she knows she is one step or two ahead everyone and she has discovered just that special move to twist to bring whole the castle of cards down-the only high she really craves, better than bloodlust, most significant than any kill, most all-around-satisfying than any drug.

“Oh, Elena I love you-”

She keeps the grin in check, affects what might pass for a teenaged, demure version of arousal by leaning back, eyes half-closed, rolling her hips in a certain way as her hands slide down his ribcage and toward his groin to stop there provocatively.

“It’s more like you love my hands…”

“Damn right-”

Whatever her lover is to say gets swallowed by a grunt as she strokes the inside of his thighs softly, slowly, teasing his family jewels for a lingering moment or two just before caressing his stomach again.

He is bringing his hot mouth to her breast when her lips tremble around a moan: “Oh, I just feel _so_ guilty.”

_Oh Elena, even pretending to be you is a mood-killer. Fortunately, there are props._

_“_ My poor Stefan… _”_

_“Yeah, poor Stefan”_

The jock mutters with obvious disinterest, kissing the line between her collarbone and her nipple.

“I say he is a lucky man.”

Another mouth smirks against her shoulder, nips at her skin like a promise of punishment.

Hands bring her hips against other hips, and she undulates back and forth between two bodies, both nicely built and muscular, almost but not quite losing herself to the sensual feeling.

_How cute for them to think of me as their sex-toy and of themselves as the masters of a poor drunk and miserable orphan, when I might flip their large frames over any second now, and so easily slaughter them. Ah, to cut their throats open, the way my father used to cut into his chickens, but without any blades - using only my fingers, or my fangs._

The thought is tempting, and nothing she has not put into action in past. This time tough, she has a project .

_Such a shame. This world is so small and full of idiots- it might use some trimming._

Her hands reach for both her boys, to bring a dark head down for a kiss and another lower, back to her nipple. Her thighs spread wider and wider as she pushes her ass back to meet the hard length ready and eager to impale her backdoor entry.

Jock number 1 is careful and nearly considerate while he slides in, going slow as his hand gets her wet by playing in her secret garden.

_Not a bad lay for a teenager._

Still he knows to pull her snugly close to his chest when his friend wants to enter her too.

_It makes you to wonder if they imagine their candy-sweet school queen would never willingly submit to such profanation._

Katherine allows her body to be managed, closes her eyes to get a better read of the emotions coloring the air around her.

Lust for flesh, lust for control, a sliver of spoiled macho-boy misogyny: a shot of yellow-red fever that floats from body to body and sticks to her skin like sweaty imprint. The sort of sickly-green, vaguely predatory excitement that brands bullies when they team up to get their way and they succeed.

In the space of two heart-beats (theirs, not hers, because her heart is dead and _they_ can’t touch _that,_ nobody can, it’s only hers, it feels only for herself) all she wants is to scrub them and their filthy emotions off. They make her to feel dirty.

_But the show has to go on._

She grins the loose, only too happy grin of someone who had way too much drink at this sorry high school party.

“Oh, I feel so full, it is so very good ! ”

_Well, maybe that came out too shrill._

“What’s that, princess, does not Stef know how you like it?”

She stretches up, giggling in faux-giddiness, so the camera in the corner of the room will get a really good shot of her bare breasts.

“He does! He does! He just thinks I like it a bit too much! But it is not my fault! Since my parents died I only need something extra, do you know?”

_Oh, if the dig to her dead parents on record while having a threesome on record does not break her in half, I will have severely misjudged her character._

“Yeah, yeah we understand. Right, Jack?”

“Sure, man.”

“Just shut it up, both of you, and get me off.”

That might be the first totally honestly-meant thing she has said in the whole night.

“Oh, is that a… a camera?!”

“Elena, honey, you were the one who wanted to do something crazy - I told you, nobody will ever see the tape except me and Jack -”

_More like you and your meat-head cronie will show it to whole your pathetic football team, if I have to compel it out of you. Which I will totally do because I did not enjoy your sophisticated company for sport._

“Promise! I would die if anyone ever knew! My poor Stefan! Pretty please, do that scissor thing to me with your fingers again!”

_I sure to God hope my double is not as annoying as I play it in the bedroom. Dear Stefan, what were you thinking?_

At dawn, she is sliding back into her tiny black dress, slipping on her trench coat, and leaving behind two worn out, properly compelled morons and their video camera behind as silently as she can.

The fresh air of morning that hits her in the face while she steps out the house goes a long way to put distance between her and the previous night. The show can go on and the stench of mediocrity and sweat is already only the shadow of already accomplished deeds.

Elena Gilbert’s deeds, not hers.

_Life is all about the little things._

All Katherine wants at that point is a good, long, hot shower and a martini.

_But first things first._

Her maker never liked to wait.

She dials him up as she strolls toward the nearby bar, a vampire on a mission to get at least some caffeine in.

“Kat?”

He sounds drowsy, like she just woke him up. Good. She should not be the only one to be inconvenienced.

“Nik, I am on schedule. Elena’s life stage as Mystic Falls pure princess just got an hit it will never recover.”

“Do I want to know the hows?”

“A pointless question from a control maniac like yourself.”

“Very true.”

“So why are you not grilling me? I might to want to gloat.”

That’s basically the whole basis of their sire-childe relationship. He sets her up a task, invites her to do her worst ever-so-sweetly, and she has her fun going above his expectations, if she can. She gloats, he spoils her high by unloading on her his ever-present man-pain about family issues, and their shared assessment that yes, being an Empath does make you more and not less of a sociopath.

“Elijah had a vision.”

This one makes her to roll her eyes. There’s always a vision coming from that particular party.

“So?”

“We will lose Pearl and Anna.”

“Staked? Burned? Unsuccessful ritual?”

Maybe that Bennett witch is not powerful enough, after all.

“Land-bound, actually.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You will see.”

A frown.

“Am I not supposed to make me my best to avoid it?”

“No, play along and roll with the punches for now. Pretend to be surprised and upset when it happens. Pretend to be petty and vengeaful over it. Use it to push Bonnie Bennett around, but not too much. Divert attention from Elena while you play her, and over all …”

“Take good care of Stefan!” She finishes for him with a mocking purr.

It makes her sire to laugh, a low and sexy pleased sound she still likes.

“I want _my_ boy on the edge when I come in town.”

“Elena?”

“See what you can do, I am still curious. Three women of your bloodline looking so incredibly alike. It sounds like a puzzle I might like to resolve. To not mention, I am missing a lamia in my entourage. I will collect the girl as willing as I can make her. If it gets me my Ripper back, all the better.”

_Like if you would settle for anything less. Two copies of your first love, one vampire and the other lamia. An unresolved supernatural mystery that makes your paranoid brain to hitch for a definite answer. The possibility of getting back your masterpiece of a monster. You will want it all and you will give nobody of us any rest until you get it. It’s the way you are._

“About the Bennett witch…”

“Not pliant enough, yet?”

“She got intimate with Damon. I am not sure Elena is going to be enough leverage anymore with her. Her loyalties might shift ... and a Damon in love s a wildcard, always.”

“You would know better than anybody. But, if their little group scatters it on its own it only goes to our advantage. The witch is not my priority anyway. I have plenty of those and my Gloria is doing wonders now. Her bloodline has certainly nothing to envy to the Bennetts.”

_Ah, the artist is already infatuated with his dangerous creation. Right as usual. Nik, if only you were as unique as you think yourself being…_

“One of those days, this obsession of yours with adding to your … menagerie will land us all in serious trouble.”

“You love trouble and I run a business. Having only the very best in our employ is what keeps our family on top.”

The casual amusement that was there just beneath the surface of that velvet voice now to turned to pure steel. Katherine knows better than to not take it seriously.

_*Our* family, or *yours*, Mikaelson?_

“Naturally. You know me, I was only joking.”

“I will keep in touch.”

He hangs up without waiting for a reply.

_Moody as always, my daddy._

\--

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, DON’T HATE ME RIGHT YET. This is leading up to Elena having her own storyline, separate from her love-issues, something that personally I always wanted for her. Also, this is my chance to make Klaus the villain I once dreamed he could be. It will be a dark and occasionally agansty ride, but it will be rewarding I promise.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie and Damon face the Resurrected Vampires.

_This has to be why Grams used to warn me about never giving the Powers too much of a leeway when closing a Contract._

Bonnie does not like how this turned out at all.

Having Ben, a vampire who kidnapped her, humiliated and traumatized her, back from the grave was not an option she had considered.

But he fit the bill for the Fourth Vampire servant – dead on Mystic Falls’ soil, from the same bloodline whose blood was used as tool in the ritual.

_I should have named the fourth, no matter what. I should have picked all of them personally just to exclude the chance of such an eventuality actually presenting itself. I rushed through, I left one detail up to chance and divine mercy, and this is what I get … a royal kick in the theeth._

Standing behind Pearl and Anna, Ben does not look like neither death nor resurrection improved him a bit.

_And he still glares at me like I am prey and he can’t wait to make a meal out of me._

Smug, megalomaniac and stupid – not a good combination. Especially since she was hoping to avoid to aneurism all of her present company into submission.

“You are saying you enslaved us. Do you expect us to be good with that?”

Not even half-an-hour out of her grave, Pearl Zhu seems to have already taken up the role of unofficial leader of the vampire foursome. The others let her speak on their account, keep behind her in a silent show of support, don’t join the conversation if they don’t glance sideways to her first. Hell, even Jeremy had fallen in line with that trend from the instant he led the resurrected vampires to Bonnie and Damon, and he was supposed to be on their side!

_Another stroke of luck. Damn vampire hierarchy._

If there was once one chance that Elena might have been forgotten all Bonnie had been keeping from her deliberately in name of Jeremy’s safe return into family, it is growing more distant by second.

The younger Gilbert is keeping to Anna … literally. He holds her hand, keeps stroking the inside of her wrist at random moments like if maintaining his focus on the conversation happening around him requires physical effort, and touching her is the only touchstone that grounds him. His gaze keeps drifting to her face, and when he does the feverish, haunted intensity she finds there paints him as a stranger into Bonnie’s eyes.

_He might be obsessed or he might be in love, but either way he won’t stick with us for long._

“You are not shackled to me, you are bound to Mystic Falls-”

“A place where a Council set on ending our kind _thrives_.”

Pearl’s pale face is a mask of contrite, controlled incredulity. Her tone when she speaks to Bonnie is the tone a teacher would use while striving to be patient with a child that is unreasonably missing the point of an important lesson.

“Would you prefer being dead?” Damon snipes helpfully, with all the flair he usually sports when he spoiling for a fight.

Pearl levels at him the coolest glance “Most certainly not. My rejoicing in life doesn’t keep me from pointing out the flaws in your plan tough.”

Damon snickers. “You are not here for your comfort, but for ours.”

And Bonnie knows she has step in before tensions escalate, no matter how privately she agrees with him. She tries hard to sound calm and reasonable.

“You were brought back as a protector of the land. As long as you keep to that law, the land will keep you protected and undead. My role as enforcer and referee of the Contract is purely a matter of theory unless you try to kill on these grounds or to harm any innocents. You were dead and you get to _live,_ it does not seem to me like the price you are going to pay is too high. ”

“ _Magic_ is going to save us from a stake, when we can’t kill those who hunt us?”

Ben laughs, low and derisive, and the aneurism that brings him to his knees right away is almost reflex.

_Gods, I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I saw him, but he makes easy to not regret it._

Other vampires ignore his whimpers of pain … except Damon, that grins his beaming approval.

“This trick looks like a much classier move when I am not the one on the receiving end of it.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

She finds herself smiling at him, despite the situation, and the desire that slashes through her body when he leans in slightly, approval so bare on his features, takes by complete surprise.

The cemetery, the vampires in it, the little cat still curled, immobile, around her shoulders in silent protection, and even the cold, heavy awareness of Death all around her weighing on her senses -- it all recedes, grows as distant as dream in front of this primal gravity that tries to pull her body to his body, her mouth to his mouth.

The magic that keeps her on the edge, ready to respond to the smallest provocation in the face of danger, the tension in her muscles, the left-over, dark energies lingering in her from the ritual … it _all_ blooms into a feeling of want so visceral and so pure that it takes her breath away.

Her instincts would love nothing better than grabbing Damon, forgetting her cursed company and sneaking in one of the family crypts to hide.

_To slam his back against cold stone, rip his shirt open, get him out of those pants and inside my body. Just get myself off on him, over and over again._

_Wait, what?_

She shakes herself out the fantasy, but the heat dancing up and down her spine from her loins doesn’t leave.

She feels good about it tough; it makes her warm and comfortable in her skin instead of ashamed or nervous, like she _thinks_ she should feel, zoning out like that in a crisis.

_Stupid hormones._

“What if we tried to leave the town?”

Her attention drifts to Harper. It is impressive like his whole body language reminds her of Stefan.

“The very same magic that was calling you to me after your Resurrection will keep you from going past certain boundaries.”

“Even if our lives were in danger? ”

“Yes.”

No getting around that. To his credit, Harper nods at himself with an air of resigned complacency.

He clearly expected as much.

“After you, your descendants will inherit the role of Referees of the Contract. What if you don’t have any descendants? Will we… return to dust?”

Anna asks, inserting herself in the conversation for the first time.

“No, the Ancestors will name another. Most likely another witch. No use in planning for my death, therefore.”

Bonnie smirks, and again she feels all fire and adrenaline, herself but not herself at the same time. It is the queerest feeling.

“But, if we die defending this rotten place, does it stick?”

Ben is on his feet again, but noticeably less confrontational than he was when he opened his mouth last. _Good._

“Sorry, you are still susceptible to all the downfalls of your vampirism. One more chance is all you get, and even that is conditional.”

Damon sing-songs beside her, almost giddy to deliver the information. He too, didn’t look too content of Ben‘s presence among the ‘Chosen Ones’, as he called them.

“Then I am afraid you took a useless risk in going against Katherine’s desires.” Pearl asserts herself back in, quietly.”Four of us, in addition to two of her Childen-of-blood in Damon and Stefan, might perhaps be enough to take her down, if that is what you hoped to obtain. But if she has been acting on the account of our sire, and she certainly doesn’t care enough about me or my daughter to do all of this unless she is instructed to, we will be all slaughtered regardless. We are no match for the Originals.”

“The Originals?”

Damon’s brow is furrowed in suspicion. He mocks the title even as he inquires about it.

It makes Bonnie guess that he has even less of an idea of who they are than she does, and it is not a reassuring thought.

“The First Vampires, one family whose bloodline started all others, and sired me and Katherine both.”

“A myth you are trying to frighten us off with. It won’t work.”

He glowers, but the older vampire doesn’t even blink.

“All you will manage to accomplish with *this charade* - she assures with a certain iciness – is to irritate them … the sad thing is that now you will drag my family down along with yours.”

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elena and Stefan are finally informed about the ritual and everything that came before. Elena loses some of her innocence.

_.00 AM, Salvatore Boarding House …_

Stefan opens the door, and is not sure he can do anything except blinking at the scene before him.

It is way too early for Damon-induced shenigans, and this scene already _definitely_ looks like something that is going to give him a major headache.

He is very tempted to shut the door on Damon's shiny, cat-just-ate-the-canary-and-you-can't-do-anything-about-it-anymore grin and crazy-moving-to-match eyebrows, to return to his bed and Elena's warm, long, welcoming body.

_But …_

Bonnie is just there beside Damon, looking nearly apologetic.

Anna and Jeremy stand behind the vampire-witch duo nuzzling like a pair of innocent lovebirds that death (or murder) never parted. Pearl is in the middle of the should-be-dead-but-they-are-not vampire group, all stiffness and ice, flanked by an aloof Harper and a twitchy, nearly-familiar-looking … ah, no, now his memory connects … that one is the newbie who kidnapped Elena and Bonnie _ages ago_.

_Nothing is right or promising with this picture._

Also, why is the weirdest little _cat_ peeking out of Bonnie's bag?

"There's a really good, really colorful explanation for all of this." His brother zeroes in before he can ask, his whole _being_ stretching in a string of charm and smarminess.

_Again, not a good sign._

"I bet."

He is nearly curious… not. He is still pretty attached to that fantasy of cuddling Elena until breakfast time, getting his morning refill of blood and coffee, basking in the glow of her soft smiles as they read the newspaper together, and _then_ facing the crazy of the day.

He got used to that schedule (or variations of it, anyway) when he was staying at the Gilberts, and he is not quite ready to let it go. Not in favor of complications he has not predicted or planned.

But he can hear her dressing in the other room, so he is fully aware he is just stalling the unavoidable until she is ready.

"Dare I ask why they are out of their grave? Katherine's work?"

"My work, preventing her work." Bonnie stresses, raising her hand to claim the responsibility of this, and she manages to look so unhappily guilty about it than Stefan feels unpleasantly certain that the story behind the picture is going to turn even less pretty than he imagines.

"What is up?"Elena asks from behind him, and Stefan takes it as his signal to stand aside and let the group in.

* * *

Elena listens.

And she feels.

A lot of different things.

Suspicion – an ever present shadow on the background of everything else- Pearl is too scared of those so called Originals to be trusted with the town or the lives of the people she loves… and the others are just loyal to _her_.

Relief – a _sharp_ hit of it, because Jeremy is out of Katherine's pocket finally, no matter what this cost them on the long run.

Horror – heavy and inescapable, a thick haze that cloaks anything in its path - for what Jeremy did, what Bonnie almost went through, what Bonnie did _that night_ that changed everything without Elena ever knowing it.

Incredulity that she and Stefan never suspected whole this long, dark list of happenings that concerned their friends and his brother, for God's sake. Shame that she never noticed Bonnie slipping far away into this dangerous world *she* brought on both their doorsteps when she decided to stick with Stefan.

Gratitude that Damon helped her friend and her brother, and disbelief that he managed to keep it from her and Stefan.

She is overwhelmed and she hugs the living daylights out of Bonnie at some point, mouthing a 'thank you' to Damon that looks over at that moment with a suspicious sort of attention she can't quite figure out.

She hugs Jeremy too, hard. Her brother, almost lost, back where he belongs.

There's much that she wants to say to them, privately, a lot of questions she needs to ask … but now, with strangers looking on, this reunion is hard enough without getting too personal.

She wants to thank Damon properly, for orchestrating all of this while she had shut him out, to explain why she felt she had to put their friendship on ice for some time, to thank him again for standing by Bonnie.

She wants to ask Bonnie why she didn't confide in her, assure her best friend that she is not judging her, that she can tell her anything, anything. Comfort her for all the times Bonnie needed her and she didn't know to be there. To erase this sudden sense of separation between them.

She wants to reach for Jeremy, get him away from this crowd and make sure that now he has Anna he knows to draw lines between what he can do and what he should. She wants to take the pain away from her brother, more than anything. She wants to mend him and pull him through.

But this is not the place or the time, she gets that.

Hugs shall have to do.

* * *

It is decided that the 'Resurrected Gang' will be hosted at the Boarding House and kept hidden until they are sure about how to settle scores with Katherine.

It goes unspoken that this is also where Stefan and Damon will be able to better keep their guests under a cautious watch.

Eventually, because this time Damon leaves with Bonnie, claiming she is too wiped out by the ritual to not have a 'stud of a bodyguard' at her back for the day.

He's truly a good guy underneath, Elena can't avoid to think then, and she is a little bit happy she was right to put her trust in him, after all.

She hangs on with Stefan as he gives rooms to his unwanted guests, plays hostess by holding polite conversation with Pearl and Anna and helping them to settle in. She even manages to corner Jeremy into a one-on-one-chat, even if not much comes out of that. Too soon to reach him beyond his walls, but she can wait.

She goes to school, comes up with excuses for Bonnie's absence, diverts Caroline's attention from it whole the day long.

Bonnie deserves a break. Elena does not forget the shadows under her eyes or the tension in other girl' body as she hugged her, so when she tries to reach her after dinner she is not too surprised her cell is ringing on unanswered.

It is strange Damon is unreachable too, tough. He is not at the Boarding House either, when she returns to it after leaving Jenna to Alaric' romancing.

Stefan is pissed that he is struck babysitting other vampires all by himself, even if he won't openly say it.

Elena does her best to sweeten the pot for him, insists to stay the night even if he would have safer at house Gilbert.

"Silliness, nowhere is safer to me that a place where you and my brother *both* are."

Besides, she feels better if she can see to Jeremy for herself.

* * *

At night, Stefan spoons her and she slides among heavy dreams right away. Even if she does not feel all that tired.

In her dreams she is combing her hair before the mirror of an antique looking vanity. She wears lacy pink lingerie and confidence, the air of fresh-faced self-possession that came easily to her before her parents died. It is the *old her*, Mystic Falls queen bee and socially-active head-cheerleader, someone today' Elena sometimes misses and often does not.

The reflection blurs and the mirror is showing her something else. Bonnie's kitchen, and Damon in it, _making pancakes_ with smiley little faces drawn in syrup upon them, serving them to a visibly exhausted Bonnie that wears the same clothes she did this morning at the Boarding House. Except this Bonnie _kisses_ him for a thank you, a ravenous, almost feral sort of kiss that the real Bonnie never would dare, not with Damon anyway, because she hates him. Or used to hate him tough. And then,* her* Bonnie has not eyes like those, paling green and feverish, haunted but not.

Her Bonnie is consistent with herself and her opinions, always, a steady compass for anyone in need. She is a worrier and a nearly maternal best friend, and she would never grin like that, wide and wild, certainly not for a vampire, and not for a vampire like Damon. She is Bonnie.

With that certainty, the disturbing image blurs away, and her reflection returns. Except it is not *her* reflection for real, this time around.

That penetrating, mocking gaze that cuts into her is 100% Katherine Pierce.

"Denial does not look cute on you, Elena. I saw them. My eyes might well be your eyes, if I put my worst intention to work."

It is not a real dream, it occurs to her at once. There's a pressure all around her mind, squeezing her in one direction, and she can't get out, can't leave.

"Get out of my head!"

"Not until I am done."

The grin is smug, it looks all wrong on lips so closely resembling to hers.

Elena forces the panic to recede.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing but opening your eyes, my naïve little fool."

"So if I say I believe you, you leave."

Simple enough.

Katherine rolls her eyes, twisting her features into an expression of petulant distaste.

"Please,honey, give me a little credit. You will believe me when our dear Bonnie confesses up to you, which will most likely be very soon. She can't keep the charade up for much longer. I just want you keep to your heart the beautiful picture I gave you. They looked hot together. Remember who discovered them first for you."

They looked like strangers, Elena corrects to herself, Bonnie with her … general strangeness, Damon with his domestic fluffiness and tender, not-so-desperate blue eyes.

Irrational, she is acutely aware of it, but she feels betrayed.

"There's anything else?"

With her voice covered in ice, she is reminded once more of that other, past self she glimpsed before in the mirror.

"How is Stefan?"

"A day without you is always a good day."

"Or so he says."

The casual lightness her double uses to insinuate that, like Stefan's view point is nothing because Katherine already decided on her version of reality and will bend him to it, angers Elena in a thousand different ways.

"He means it too. You _abused_ him, made him to feel like your whole relationship was a rape on every level and he still was so defenseless than he could only love you for it. That's monstrous enough. You don't get to dismiss his feelings on the matter, on top of it."

"Yet he loves _you_ now, my living likeness in all but the mellower personality, and before you there was _Klaus,_ my sire and teacher in nearly all things that made me as you know me, for almost fifty years. Basically me with a cock, but then I suppose the same mind games that he found so offensive in a Southern flower weren't so bad in a New York bad boy."

"Don't hide behind sexism. Stefan is not the bad guy here, you are. Right as proved by this … forced conversation. Other people boundaries mean nothing to you."

Elena responds in automatic, determined to not give in an inch.

Inside, she feels like someone just doused her with iced water.

It's an old fear, that Stefan might love her just because Katherine hurt him so much that only being with a *good* version of her could heal him. She pushed it down and decided to believe in their relationship, every time it came up.

But this …

Pearl described the Original family: Niklaus Mikaelson, second born son and bastard of the family, bloodthirsty and vengeaful head-clan; Elijah the Seer, Rebekah Of The Beautiful Death, ruthless assassin to her brothers' enemies. Kol the Trickster who collected witches, who had recently turned one of the New Orleans Harvest Girls right before a sacrifice could occur, making her a nearly all-powerful… Davina The Goddess, they called her now. Finn the Kinslayer who was buried alive after he descended into madness and tried to slay his own siblings, defeated only by a combined effort of all his kin.

Stefan was there as Pearl talked and talked some more.

He didn't act like someone who already knew the Originals. He asked all the right questions, confided his concern over the situation to her right afterwards.

_Stefan was silent about Katherine once too, but that was different. They had not the relationship they have now._

Even if she still ignores so much of his past. His remorse makes a lot of not-Lexi-related subjects a complete taboo.

"I won't say I have not traumatized him, Elena, but in the end, what is love but a wound we keep digging into over and over again, trying to feel something other than a lack, an absence? We might hate solitude, but the only healthy love we are ever allowed is the love we hold toward ourselves. A score on the which you need improving, dearest."

"Shut it up."

She has had enough of this proselytism and condescension and general Katheriness. She is ready to get the hell out of this dream.

Katherine just gives her a triumphant smile.

"He told you nothing about Klaus. Nothing about fucking another man neither, just to stay on the generals and bond over the years he was crazy and experimenting? It sounds more and more like you are not inside his head at all, and only because he does not want you there. _Some love,_ being the fuck-toy and not the lover, always the healing and never the sickness that haunts him in his sleep."

Elena mirrors that smile with a beaming grin that comes so easy, too easy. It is never hard to tap in the bravado when there's nothing to lose, and this is how she feels. Nothing is over and everything is at the same time. When she wakes she will have Stefan and Stefan will have her. They will be sharing a bed, a life, but there's a dream she is losing, here and now, and Katherine is killing it somehow.

_Just words, they are just words. Ideas and not facts. It might be all a lie. It might be a truth said in the wrong light. I love Stefan. I trust Stefan._

_Even if deep down, I don't know him enough to tell the difference between truth and lie. Even Katherine saw that, and she understood how to use it._

"I had enough of you pretending you know anything about me or my boyfriend or our relationship. You can get out, or I can push you out. Either way, I am done replying to whatever you say."

Elena means that. It may be a stretch to claim she will push an ancient vampire out of her head by force, as she does not even know if it is possible (damn her, for relying too much on other people' protection to get better informed) but it won't stop her from trying and trying again.

She is not going down this easy.

"Brave girl. I have one more gift for you, and then we will talk in person. I promise you will even want to see me, when you receive it."

Elena wants to bite back just how likely that is, but she holds back. She promised to stay silent and she will follow through on ignoring her double if it kills her.

Katherine's dark, predatory eyes are the ghost that follows her as she finds herself in her bed, exhaling deep, like she was underwater for long time and just now coming up for air.

Stefan's arms are around her – they feel like a cage.

"Elena?"

He speaks her name against her shoulder like he owns it. He has always seemed to say her name like it meant something to him, everything. He was the only person to ever do that. She trusted that.

_I trust it, still._

"Just a bad dream. About exams and not vampires, how odd is that, with our situation? "

And it is easy to talk to him the way she always talked to him. Kindly, softly. Like nothing changed.

_Nothing *has* changed, except we have issues to talk through, now._

It is the easiest thing in the world, to lie.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie had most of her arc at this point, in the sense that there's a storyline for her and Damon as couple, but she as character is where she needs to be - all grown up as a witch, and out of the most of her issues.   
> Damon still has Katherine issues and we will get there, but he is better, emotionally, than he was at the beginning.  
> For Elena, her character arc is just beginning. She remained the most naive and 'soft' of the group until now. Time for her to take a level in badass too. ;)


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tables turn fast on everyone. Or, this is the point of the story where the secret meaning of the title comes to light. Every single character here has deep issues. It's their issues that keep them together.

**Chapter 23**

He makes for her pancakes with ridiculous syrupy smiley faces and looks down to her like a puppy waiting for approval.

It’s those smoldering, so blue, puppy eyes that make Bonnie to feel disoriented, because, in her life, it is usually Elena or Caroline to be on the receiving end of them. She is the girl who looks on by the sidelines, judging a little that loss of dignity, hoping it will never happen to her and yet dreading it will.

It has never been clearer that her life took a drastic turn to somewhere known.

She draws Damon’s head down for a kiss – the fire in her belly, never quite gone since _that moment before_ flares up to new life. There’s a monster underneath her skin now , and it screams to her to take what is hers.

With her body pressed to his tough, the possessive feeling fades to a certain burning, bone-deep fondness. She is simply glad of him, his presence in her house, of the shape his body makes against hers, familiar but always new, of his scent and the way he growls as he kisses her throat. She likes this thing they have together, no strings attached, no limitations, despite the hovering promise of more.

It feels good, natural. Even if probably it should not, with his being a vampire and her being a witch and their species being made to be each other’ bane.

If she was not feeling so weak from the ritual, it would be far more than making out. Instead they come back to the table, both breathless and light-headed, and share breakfast in companionable silence. When she collapses on her bed he is underneath her, a vampire-shaped, warm cushion of flesh that ouches in faux-irritability while she gets comfortable.

He is talking when her eyes drift shut… she can’t make out the exact words, this is how tired she is, but she knows the tone, the amused sarcasm it carries. She falls asleep, feeling safe for possibly the first time since getting introduced to the supernatural.

 

It’s weird to sneak around Pearl and Harper like he and Anna are just two normal teenagers.

Jeremy never once imagined it was possible to be looked to again like a real boy once the news of what he had done got out. But Elena knows and still treats him with compassion, forgives him before he can work up the courage for asking. Anna is _grateful,_ Anna is _happy he is in love with her,_ she had doubts before. Anna allows him to tell her how in love he is with every part of her body as soon they get an hour alone in her bedroom.

She offers to him the pale curve of beautiful neck, let him to drink from her while she drinks from him in return. He never felt so close to another being until that second her skin is in his mouth and her blood is moving inside his body. _His blood runs in her body too, keeps her alive and strong and well._ That furious, primal, grandiose feeling, there are no words for it.

They feed each other, and it is erotic without even coming close to sex, intimate without ever coming close to shed a layer extra of cloth. Sustenance is offered and accepted, but it’s oh so much more than that.

It’s life, his dead heart almost fluttering and stilling in imaginary tune with hers, her essence coating his veins, breathing color into his skin while he _knows_ his blood is doing the same for her.

This is his new normal.

Jeremy already adores it.

 

 

Elena wanders in her neighborhood without an aim, attention drawn inward, toward a past she can no longer catch.

She left Stefan with a boisterous kiss and soft caresses, light in her eyes as she danced out of the door with promises of seeing him later at school. She was playing at being happy. Without that mask, she just feels lonely.

She is more sad than angry, really, and it will probably stay like that even if Katherine’s tale turns to be true.

Strangely, all she can think of this morning is her parents. How hard it was after they died, to just… get up and do normal things, bring herself over that terrible realization that they were gone.

The way it hurt, the tide of memory, bringing them back, flesh and bright as if they were still with her, part of her forever, just to bring them away again. And again, and again, the pain never truly gone, even when everybody acted like it was just fine to go on, to move on, to leave people and pieces of you behind.

Everybody always spoke to her about death eventually losing her touch, leaving only a more serene recollection of a past shared with people you used to care about.

Elena tried to convince herself it could work for a time. It did not. It kept surprising her, at the most random, unexpected moments, that the parents she had loved existed only the past, along with all the hopes, all the dreams that would never come true.

The pain remained a bleeding wound and not a scar… and god, if it drove her crazy, the general assuming that she could, should, would just …stop loving those who weren’t there like they were, in fact, just in the beside room.

_If only it was a matter of choice._

_This is the way I love, and I can’t help it. I don’t know how to let things or people to go. The more I try to force myself in that direction, the more I lose .I pretend otherwise out of necessity, fairly well._

_I forgive too easily, before ever wondering if it’s wise. I get easily fond of the people I meet, then I just as easily forget them. I feel for anyone in pain, I feel almost coerced to sooth it when I see it, even if I dislike the person in question, even if it turns me into a doormat on occasion. I hate that feeling of people I care about slipping away, so I hold on even when it is against their best interest. I am not perfect, and I feel most alive under the eyes of those I love. Right now, it sucks._

Because it is becoming odiously apparent that even when people stay, they can no longer to be there anyway, and that’s a wholly different brand of pain.

She does not resent Bonnie for her … _whatever it is_ with Damon. In time, when she made sure Damon is not using her to get attention, she will be happy for them. But Bonnie is growing into a stranger, and Damon maybe no longer feels for *her*, maybe he never really did, and Jeremy killed himself to become a vampire.

Here it goes, three people that matter to her, that used to care about being in her life, that either promised or were genetically wired to stay in there, always, just took a turn to drive in whole another direction.

Stefan?

He feels like forever, but he won’t let her in all of him, apparently. It hurts her, but she feels helpless about it too. _Saint Elena is already forgiving and worrying about his pain instead. I am so pathetic._

Funny thing is, she was attracted to his brother. She saw Damon, holding on this blazing obsession for her look-alike, this passion that drove his every action for beyond a century and that compelled him to listen to her, a perfect stranger, only because she wore the face of the woman he loved… and she thought, somewhere inside ‘this is a man that would never leave me, no matter what’.

The idea, even now, holds all of its appeal – because that’s all she wants: one person that won’t ever _let her go,_ only _one person_ in the whole world she doesn’t need losing. One person she is _safe_ in getting attached to. Because she doesn’t know how to release herself from the attachment once she takes someone inside her heart wholly.

She is not sure she can recover from another pain like the one the death of her parents inflicted, that sense of being tethered to someone absent, gone, unable to pour back on her the affections she still pours constantly on her memories. Unfading pictures, an ache she tries to distract herself from everyday –that’s what is left. But her heart still waits for a return that will never happen, still bleeds at reminders that it won’t be ever again like it used to be. She grew used to it.

For her parents, she could. For anyone else … she shut the door the summer she left Matt. She loved him then, but at the same time the sharp pain she felt, the way his presence could not diminish it by a long shot, showed her that he was not the man she could love until she grew old. Some part of her soul decided, right there and then, that if he was not her destination, she had no energy to spare and invest in their relationship.

She wanted to try for forever, or be alone; free of the burden of expecting a relief he could not offer her.

Enter Stefan. Vampire, meant to never die. A bit of a monster but so much of a man too, who could fill her loneliness with a discreet and yet unconditionally loving presence. Who believed in her enough to depend on it, and who made her the muse of his reaching beyond the bloodlust for his lost humanity.

He gave a face to her dreams, and she fell in love with his reality every day because of it.

She read the Great Gatsby once, as a school assignment. She remembers the part that struck her straight at the heart:

_‘_ _He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.’_

That’s her. The girl reaching for the green light, sure it is so near, so within her reach, hoping every time she can get close to touch and to be touched back.

In the novel, Gatsby dies waiting for his Daisy to come to him, so certain it will happen even while every single person around him understood from the beginning it was never to be. Daisy loved his love for her, not the man who felt it. So Gatsby dies hopeful and desperate, waiting for a phone call from a woman who won’t shed a tear on his death.

_The fate of a true dreamer. Nearly slave to his dream, giving it all to see it realized. Dying along with his dream, refusing to accept its fall._

Except, Stefan is real, and he loves her. He just nit-picks the parts of his self he is ready to let her see, control-freak he is. He judges himself so harshly and then expects from her the same condemnation he bestows on his actions, takes it for both salvation and absolution when she chooses to accept it all, the good and the bad.

She can live with that, but his propensity to keep secrets from her scares her and hurts her more than any skeleton he hides in his closet.

_I want everything- the monster and the man, the savage and the saint. Your secrets, your blank spaces, every little thing you never offered to another. I want that you want to give it without my asking, or it won’t mean anything. I want to be loved, and to know your love won’t ever desert me. I want you, Stefan, but it needs to be real._

She will have to talk him about this, unavoidably. To be clear about what she wants and needs, to come clean about every scrap of information Katherine dangled in front of her face.

And then, she will have to change her approach too, because her boyfriend is not the only one who is holding back.

She too, despite what she feels, started their relationship with a foot on the fence. She withheld a little part of herself, saved it for Damon just in case Stefan could not be the man who stayed, who gave it all. She had not wanted to open herself to the pain to be left hanging, not so soon after that summer of crawling stubbornly in and out of her depression.

She is ready for a risk _now_. She is not afraid of the pain anymore, she knows how it tastes and that she can shoulder it, bear its weight, and to still find happy moments in the darkness despite its sharp bite.

Elena Gilbert has reserves of strength the world does not suspect of under her sugar. She is a survivor.

 

 

When she gets to school, everybody stares and whispers. Some girl giggle as she pass them by.

_I have a bad feeling about this, already._

Caroline is the one who rushes forward, grabs her elbow to draw her aside. “What were you thinking, coming to school today? – The blonde talks in a rush, a thousand expressions shifting on her visage, like she can’t decide whether to play the part of the concerned, angry, scandalized or upset friend, then some kind of realization dawns behind the screen of her blue eyes, and her features freeze in … _pity_ \- Elena, I am so sorry, everybody knows!”

“Everybody knows what?”

_This better to not be Katherine’s promised gift, I swear…_

But it is, she realizes as soon Caroline presents her with her cellphone and a youtube link.

“One of my cheerleaders emailed it to me this morning. We don’t know who set it up.”

_I do, and I am going to kill her._

She strolls out of the school without sparing a glance to the murmuring groups of fellow students that _pretend_ to not gossip about her.

_From pity case to school slut. Might be a progress for all I know. Same dynamics at work._

She finds Stefan on the way out, in the parking lot.

“El-”

“Your ex is on you-tube, using my body and my identity for having a threesome with people I have known since elementary school.”

She is livid with anger of such an intensity she is not sure she ever experienced before.

There’s not even enough space left for feeling violated in the intimacy of her body, the sacredness of her memories. Anger is a red haze that absorbs everything in its wake.

Stefan freezes, a blank, stony expression descending on his face. His eyes flash tough, and she might swear that as his hands close and clench in fists, dark veins flutter under the skin around his eyelids.

“I am going to stake her.”

He promises, an errant knight ready to die for her honor.

Too bad it is _not_ what she needs now.

“Were you involved with Klaus at any time of your life, in any capacity?”

Good time as any for asking, she supposes, and it is not like the rage she feels will allow her to _think_.

“What?”

Stefan blinks, goes blanker, looking either very innocent or very guilty, Elena can’t tell the difference.

“She claims you were his lover for fifty years. It is true?”

“Absolutely not. How can you even imagine I would keep it from you if it was? After yesterday? I would never consciously endanger you!”

“How can I imagine it? A good question! Might it be because it would not be the first time that you hide your past from me? Because you lock away from me the parts you won’t even acknowledge _? I don’t know how you look when you are not in love with me!”_

Stefan denies nothing, and she can read it on every line of his face, of his body, that he knows she is not off the mark but he has no intention to verbally recognize it.

“Where is this coming from?”

Those are the words that break her heart.

All of Elena wants to run. Away from him, and his stony, beautiful, cherished face that kills her only by not being hers. She needs out of this parking lot, where she is forced to realize that Stefan is the one to truly hurt her and deliver a killing blow. You see, she put him on a pedestal too.

Him turning into a stranger was never an option she considered. Her bad, really.

“I need to be alone now. I can’t have this conversation _now_.”

It’s all too much. All she can do is running.

\--

Stefan does not return to the Boarding House before he punched two jocks into oblivion.

He doubts anyone at school is even surprised about it, and he can certainly use the outlet. He can’t summon the will to care about this being probably a wrong way to deal,for once.

They weren’t even compelled to set that video up, damnit, they did all on their own. Assholes.

He compels them to spread around that they got her drunk on purpose, took advantage of her, that they are ashamed. And to take off the net that insulting rubbish.

If he could, he would compel whole the school to forget, but it is too dangerous and this will have to be enough.

It does not feel like it.

Elena is hurt, and he doesn’t know how to make it better for her.

Katherine’s story about Klaus is not one he understands , at all, yet … Pearl has warned them that Originals can compel other vampires. He has found it weird right away that he lived moving between New York and New Orleans, part of their supposed territory, for fifty years, give or take, but he didn’t remember ever _hearing_ of an Original family.

He set aside his suspicions about whole the thing because it seemed there was no point in airing them so far, and because it was believable that those _Originals_ operated on a level of underground criminality that required secrecy.

_What are you playing, at Katherine?_

She _has_ to have lied to Elena, and topped it with all sorts of insinuations about his history and character if Elena turned on him with that desperation.

Or maybe she was just hurting and leashing out, with her reputation in tatters and that offensive video online.

_She has to be feeling so violated._

_Bonnie might help. There might be a spell, to fix this._

\--

He calls Bonnie, the witch is outraged and more than a little worried when she can’t find Elena on the phone.

Then she turns all her attention on her Grimoire, and Stefan is left with a bizarrely relaxed Damon, in the Bennett sitting room.

The two brothers study each other silently, sitting on the opposite sides of the room.

Stefan is feeling restless, on the edge, angry. A caged animal locked in a prison of ice, that can’t even verbalize how he feels without fearing he will lose the control he needs on his inner monster.

Usually, Stefan can count on Damon to be everything he can’t allow himself to. If Elena is in danger, and he can’t voice how badly he wants to crush those who would hurt her, he will look at Damon, who is likely to be telling her just that, and he will feel better. If he pretends to himself that he won’t always choose Elena’s safety over morality or anything else (assuming that choice is indeed absolutely necessary, obviously) he can count on Damon to force the issue. Damon externalizes what Stefan suppresses with all himself, it is the only reason his pursuing of Elena has not completely killed their already dysfunctional brotherly bond.

Some days, the younger Salvatore even wonders if this ill-fated courtship keeps them connected more or less than it keeps them distant and at war with each other.

So it is with a feeling of unreality that Stefan notices, this time he and Damon are not on the same page.

He feels like a mess, Damon … is not pacing or raving or threatening to go off the handle any time soon. He is not even flying off to find Elena, as it would be natural for _one_ of them to do, and she certainly was not in the mood to be near to _her boyfriend_.

Come to think of it, Damon looks contrary, morose and put off from this turn of events, but also remains strangely relaxed, collected. His anger is not spilling in all directions; he does not look like a man who would kill to be beside the woman he wants in moment of distress. He is not even lifting a finger to exploit an ideal time to drive a wedge between his brother and his girlfriend, which is very out of character in itself.

Stefan is a facing a puzzle whole pieces are not quite making sense.

Damon reads him like book.

“It is probably the wrong time to advertize Bonnie and I are seeing each other, is it not?”

He dishes it out playful and casual, which is how Damon delivers most often the stuff he _really_ means.

Just … Bonnie and Damon together is not an equation that adds up in his brain. Last time he checked they were very hostile toward each other, but that might have blown away while they helped each other in those months.

She distrusts vampires fiercely; Damon distrusts witches just as much. Damon uses witches, Bonnie is out for keeping vampires like him in line since she discovered her powers.

Damon’s focus was or is all for Katherine and Elena … Stefan has just supposed that Katherine’s return had shifted the attention away from his girlfriend and back on their sire.

_Unless…_

“Are you using her to get Elena jealous? I won’t-”

“I am into her and she is into me – Damon barks, interrupting him and aiming in his direction one of those disgusted and hurt and resentful glares he used to reserve for their father alone, a lifetime ago- however impossible you might find to believe the idea of _me_ in a real relationship. Of course that’s reserved for the martyrious likes of you-”

All of sudden, the room is thick with hostility.

“I was just concerned for a friend.”

“An acquaintance, if anything. –Damon tsks, still glaring – One that is both intelligent enough to tell if I am in for real or not, and fully able to kick my ass if I cross any lines.”

“Okay.” Stefan acknowledges, maybe a bit too easily, but this conversation is weirding him out. He needs time and perspective to establish if he is to take it to face value or not.

Silence between them remains tense after that. When Bonnie strolls in, oblivious to their sour faces, it is a relief for more than one reason.

“I found a memory spell to lift on a community. I would wait for Elena’s final say before I do it, tough. It is very specific, and I need to be careful in naming what we want to erase from the group memory of this town. Her imput would be useful.”

“Please- Damon chirps, shifting back to relaxed and easygoing- who would turn down a chance to have their imaginary misdeed erased?”

“You would be surprised. Memory spells almost constantly backfire, and they need to be repeated from time to time to stay effective. It might not be the brightest idea to take a risk with the Council already on alert, but I will give it my best shot to make it safer, if that is what Elena wants. ”

_In other words, it is Elena’s call and nobody else gets a say. Good enough for now._


	24. Chapter 24

Once Elena gets in the car, she drives around the town in a controlled frenzy, her mind circling back on last words Katherine told her.

 _We will meet once you get the gift_ or something along those lines. _You will want it._

Well, Elena sure wants to talk Katherine right now. But just to put to good use the spare stake under the seat.

Where to find her, that is the mystery of the day. Where would Katherine go, on a fine day like this?

Elena doesn’t expect her brain to supply an actual answer, even if she wants one desperately. Her double tough, is not one to leave any detail to chance. There’s an information, deep buried into her subconscious, that floats to surface and _glows (or the psychic equivalent of it, she supposes) like a signal._

She knows at once where Katherine waits, and she loathes it.

It is the place where the accident that turned her life on its head happened, a place Katherine should not be allowed to touch. It should be sacred, inherently Elena’s. That other _thing_ with her face does not belong there.

She speeds to destination.

Katherine is indeed waiting there, a lone and seemingly harmless figure on the side of the road, dark hair moving in the wind, sunglasses covering her eyes, glad in skinny blue jeans, leather boots and a leather jacket, poise and dressing code so different from hers that Elena has to wonder again how it is possible for anyone at all to confuse either of them with the other.

_Maybe Jenna is right. All men do their thinking only with their cocks._

It is an ungracious thought, but then she is not feeling much gracious at the moment.

Elena stops, Katherine enters the car like nothing is amiss with the picture. She takes off her sunglasses and has the gall to smile, a natural and clean smile that entirely out of place on her.

“Let’s drive to next small town in line.”

Elena finds she is too angry and upset to even talk. She drives according instructions, acutely aware of the where the stake is – she moved it to the inside pocket of her jacket- and of the easy movement that would bring it to accidentally poke out Katherine’s eyes.

Elena is human and too slow for that, but she has nothing to lose and a desperate will to do this vampire damage, to hurt her back at least a little.

“No need to thank me yet.”

“Thank you?”

_This woman is crazier than she looks, and that is saying a lot._

“ I am just beginning to set you free. My gift was just a little taste of motivation.”

“A threat, you mean.”

“No I mean exactly what I said, _motivation_. You can have heard my sire is a … collector of supernatural treasures. He wants a lamia in arsenal, but one untrained is of no use. Fortunately, I had the advantage to raise both my son and my grand-daughter. I saw him developing his gifts by experiment, and I trained his daughter myself. I am in a position to make you my masterpiece.”

“Dream on. If you think destroying my relationship with Stefan and my reputation is enough to make me fold to join a crew of psychopaths… think again. You are off the mark.”

Katherine just laughs.

“You have a drop of spunk, good. I hate too fragile toys – they get broken before growing useful.”

“Your opinion of me is irrelevant. I am here because I want to hear what you have to say before having the satisfaction before giving you my gift too.”

“The vervained wood you have on you? I can smell it. We both know you can’t be strong or fast enough to get me with it. You are here because you are angry and you want to unload, all to take back the power you feel I took from you. Whatever. I don’t care. You will listen to my story, I will do my part to keep Klaus happy, then we will both free of each other. ”

It’s Elena’s turn to laugh.

“Motivation, Elena. You are the school’ slut now, but you don’t need to be. You can take control of this. You use your abilities the right way, you can maneuver your idiot citizens to see you as a saint. Hell, you might persuade them that what you think, what I have done in your place, is the coolest and romantic thing ever. You will be their goddess of love, descended on hearth just to light up their miserable, grey lives. You will rule them, they will want to crush anyone who says a bad word on you. No more needing lovely Bonnie or my secretive Salvatores studs to protect you. You can handle yourself, if you accept my tuition. ”

That is seductive, the concept she might finally be not defenseless, not a weight.

_Not acceptable._

“Go to hell.”

“Really? Then stop this car right now.”

Elena drives on.

The other alternative, to be vulnerable when everyone leaves, and in a world where everybody hunts for everyone, is not acceptable. She needs to know too, if every single thing she received in her life she has not had because of herself, but because of some supernatural hold she has on others , that is beyond her control.

All answers have a price. This answer in particular comes to the cost of her pride.

\--

As the road runs before them, Katherine spins a tale.

“My son was always a pretty child. A bit capricious maybe, but people seemed to barely notice and rarely care. Women wanted to protect and coddle at first. He had every single of his nurses and teachers wrapped around his palefinger. I was the only person in his life that ever said no to him, which was why we didn’t get along. That, and the fact he tended to take the spotlight away from me, being terribly rude about it. I loved him, but I didn’t like him at all. It made me very curious. I studied him, grew suspicious, and eventually tested what he could do once I discovered it. By borrowing and reading his diary. He too, had experimented with his abilities, used fancy words to dress them up. He had two gifts, that he named Persuasion and Imperium. Persuasion to him, felt like a cloak he projected on the person he wanted to affect. He conjured a feeling, an illusion, an image and he wrapped it around his body, then extended it from there… soon his victim was somehow convinced the idea, my son had was real … or in some cases, the person’s brain utterly reshaped itself to better accommodate that belief. My son could persuade you the sky was green, if you weren’t careful around him. He used to drive some into madness, on occasion.”

Elena shudders, horrified.

“Imperium was a little better. He could just break into someone thoughts and push into them the need to commit whatever action he wanted. He loved it. A bit too much. Fortunately discovering sex calmed him little. He decided his gifts were a wonderful opportunity to do some fortune hunting. He seduced young heiresses , then he did away with them and enjoyed their fortune. He was doing wonders for himself until he met a girl he actually liked. He did the _stupid_ error to reveal himself to his seventh bride. She poisoned him. I killed her and took their daughter with me. Nadia … I actually liked her, and I was devastated when she died an old maid. ” – Katherine tells it like that was a true feat, but it’s the softness in her eyes as she pronounces Nadia’s name that gives her away-.

“Her power expressed itself differently. She described it as pouring silk through her mouth. Anyway, the effect was the same – she talked, and _crowds_ could believe every words without a shadow of questioning. She could fascinate too. Even women who met her could not avoid having fantasies of her.”

Elena strives hard to not imagine what that could have meant for Katherine’s relationship with her grand-daughter.

“Imperium was something she never mastered tough. It didn’t work for her, but then she never _needed_ uttering orders .If she wanted something and mentioned it, whoever was around at the time would move mountains to bring her that desire made real. They wanted to please her to the point of madness, that was her secret.”

Again, not a principle Elena is fond imagining to live her life to, but an useful tool nonetheless.

_It might save lives, it might destroy lives. Which would it be for me?_

“So, it is different for everyone. How would you help me?”

“I know how my children found their triggers, the tricks they used to learn their way with it. Today, I will make sure you pull your trigger and bring your sweet power out. Tomorrow, I will be on the first train out. ”

“What?”

“Klaus wants me elsewhere. It’s his show and he hates sharing. Stefan and Damon will have to deal.”

She sounds almost sorry about it.

“You just finished bullying into accepting your teachings!”

“I gave you all the bits of history you need to find your way. Once your power is awake, you can’t come back. My job is just to … unlock you. It can be accomplished within a day. If it can’t … I will keep up the research for the right motivation. Believe me, you would hate that.”

“It’s _you_ I hate.”

“Join the club. Have I mentioned that once you tap into the power, the sexual frustration you will stir into the nearby humans will keep you young, by feeding the power itself? Like a self-regenerating battery. My darling sadist of a son adored that part. ”

“I can’t think of any reasons _he_ would not.”

Personally, Elena feels cursed already, but it’s late to turn back from this step. She needs one weapon, only one to protect those she loves from the oncoming danger.

_I might actually get forever with Stefan if I do this, without becoming a vampire._

They stop at a bar.

Katherine makes Elena to try on all the mental mojo and imagery her son used to persuade or command.

Every attempt fails. Elena does not feel anything.

Then they try all of Nadia’s tricks. Some of them hit close to home, and Elena feels like pianist touching her instrument for the first time, just to find all the chords are broken.

She puts together, under Katherine’s scrutiny the bits that touch her inside and combines them together in a bunch of different puzzles.

It is hard to say what Awakens her, because every single thing she does seem to fail but …

In the evening Elena unfurls like a rose. It is what her senses tell her, anyway.

Something deep inside opens up and she feels it blossoming like a flower. Her power is not silk, it is a perfume spreading in the air gently, overpowering the passersby, who stop and stare, not at two identical girls but only one. Enchanted.

Her words too, feel like perfume. She can Persuade. She can order and make it to sound like a prayer. She can get a dreamy look in Katherine’s eyes for a couple of seconds before the vampire shakes herself out of it.

_I found my self and my forever, at last._

She leaves Katherine to the train station without looking back, closes her imaginary petals around herself to contain _It._

Bonnie is the very first person she calls.

Whole the story spills from her lips with no control. Maybe Elena even cries.

“Come home. –Bonnie pleads. - Come to see me. I won’t call Stefan, or anyone else. ”

And she does so because Bonnie always saves her, like that summer she could not get out of the bed, some mornings, and so Bonnie would stay the night just to snap her out of it. Drag her into the sunlight again by filling the room with chatter.

 _This is my sister_ , she knows without doubt when they hug on her doorstep, _and it will never change._

“Make her happy.” she will say Damon the day after, without any Persuasion “and take good care of her.”

She will mean it.

 

She and Stefan meet each other at school.

The awkwardness between them cuts her nearly phisically.

“I am a jerk.” He starts, and maybe it is a little true, but all of him is _brooding_ in her face, it is hard to stay indifferent.

“No, you are not, I just … ”

_Doormat Elena at work again. I need to stop._

“I _am_ a jerk, I know that for a fact. I want desperately to not be, tough, so I put a lid on many things I feel, and many things I lived. I never meant to hurt you with it, it is just … habit, at this point of my life.”

_Some justification._

It strikes her that he is not promising to change.

“The Klaus thing?”

“I was being honest with you about that. If Originals can compel other vampires, I suppose it might have happened, and I might have had my mind erased _again_. I hope it is not the case, but I can’t exclude it. ”

“Okay.”

Not a problem, even if it turns to be true. Not for her at least. For him, yet another lover ready to brainwash him will be a blow. For his sake, she hopes Katherine was lying too. She just has a feeling it is not very likely.

“I was worried about you yesterday.”

“I know”

“You are still angry.”

“I am _sad_. We will grow apart if you don’t let me all in.”

“You are in!”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“I told you-”

“I want a love that consumes me, Stefan. I didn’t think I was that sort of girl, but I am and I can’t change it. It’s why I kept returning inside Damon’s orbit, even if I wanted, love and _chose_ you every time. I was wrong about it, and I am sorry, I won’t do it again but-”

“You want more.”

“I want all of you, even the bits you are ashamed of.”

He looks serious like a funeral as he digests _that._

_I didn’t ask for the moon or a deadline, does he realize that?_

But his forehead wrinkles in that cute way she has always, always loved. It sweetens the offense.

“Well, I don’t want to consume you. Vampires are already obsessive by nature. I want to see you to burn with what makes *you* Elena and take flight as I watch you, not to see you disappearing into the black hole that my life has been before you.”

_That does sound a bit obsessive, now I think of it. Maybe. Is it off that I like it all the same?_

“It sounds like we might be able to compromise.”

She smiles, he smiles back.

Her heart suffers that beautiful feeling of and growing three sizes and being lifted to the stars. _Like the day we met. Exactly like that._

Then his gaze changes, a slightly dazed, dreamy veil descends upon it and between them. “You look even more beautiful than usual today. ”

And she remembers a pretty important detail she has not yet made him aware of.

“Did I mention, now I am a demon too?”

_Smooth, Elena, really smooth._

“That’s a funny joke.”

There’s still a glazed … something over his expression. He actually believes she made an amazing joke.

_Controlling this tiny novelty will take a lot of work._

She is totally up the challenge.


	25. The Epilogue

**THE EPILOGUE**

Bonnie and Elena would spend months training their gifts together, trying to prepare for unavoidable ‘invasion’ from the Originals – it made their friendship stronger than they could have predicted, filling that gap that had existed between them since Sheila’s death. They could once more to call each other sisters, and to know it was no lie.

Unfortunately, their newfound closeness, along with the supernatural existence they now shared, excluded their ‘third musketeer’ Caroline in ways they could not quite manage to prevent, despite their trying hard.

Not enough for Caroline, they would discover later. When Klaus came in town, and put Bonnie in the terrible predicament of killing Greta Martin, witch and one of Klaus’ many lovers-creatures, in a direct fight, his ‘punishment’ would collect Caroline as first casualty of the war between the Original family and their gang.

Turned by Klaus, who used her insecurities, her jealousy of Elena and her feelings that the latter had nearly ‘stolen’ Bonnie away as she stole everything else, to turn the blonde against her old friends, Caroline became for a time a quite vicious vampire.

Especially after Klaus’ constant provocations of Stefan into violence, reopened ‘a Ripper stage’ of his life that had Liz Forbes among its first victims. Caroline turned off her emotions then, and it took all of Bonnie’s magical and emotional power to keep her in check as she made the whole town to pay for her grief.

But in the end, Caroline’s genuinely loving and joyful nature proved to be the one thing even the all-powerful Klaus could not corrupt. Good memories of her mother and of her friends, summoned in a staged ’intervention’ that saw the use of both Bonnie’s spells and Elena’s gift of Persuasion, brought her back to her heart.

She never forgave Stefan tough, nor did she accept that Bonnie and Elena’s choice to stand by him and not by her.

She returned to Klaus as an extremely controlled vampire with a renewed self-esteem his manipulations could not touch. He was enthralled by the change, the way Caroline’s human OCD enabled to keep her inner monster in check nearly flawlessly, the way she now stood up to him in defense of her old friends.

The seducer became the seduced, once more, and his newest childe basked in that fascination she exercised, exploited it to convince Klaus to return to New Orleans with her in tow.

Caroline Forbes took extraordinarily well to life as his mafia princess there. Having a guy who covered her with gifts every day and acted needier than her was a dream coming true for many decades.

For Stefan, his road to recovery was long and hard. Elena was able to use her power to help him through, _Persuading_ him down the edge every time he was falling over. In the long run, that made their relationship much stronger.

Bonnie and Damon came through the hardships of that year as an ‘official’ couple. They became best friends _and_ lovers, at least when they weren’t at each other’s troath. Love for them remained a battlefield.

Yet, when the Travelers came to town, bringing the rumor of a Cure along with them, at first, and then its reality…. Damon decided to fight for it and take it, despite Stefan’s opposition.

Damon remained vampire until Bonnie was ready for college and set to leave Mystic Falls and its dangers behind. Then he took his magic pill, and actually went to college right along with her.

Ironically, he was the one who set out to become the next Occult professor of the Bennett Family. Bonnie studies psychology and became a therapist. They lived in Salem until they were old and wrinkly, both of them, in a small house with one huge garden Bonnie spent a terrible amount of time and energy on.

They had three daughters Damon insisted to be a stay-home-dad to as Bonnie pursued her career, and all their friends wondered at how they never considered marriage although they were incredibly committed to stay together.

Their daughters grew into brilliant witches, and when Damon eventually died, it was in his sleep, smiling, as he looked his grand-daughters playing since his wood chair on the porch.

Bonnie had not the chance to mourn him – his ghost just refused to leave the house, his woman, or this world. She was glad for it, and for the fact she could still hear his voice and see his face, being an advanced necromancer.

It became a running joke in the family that even death could not part Damon Salvatore from the people he loved.

Necromancy remained a strong talent in the new Bennett line, that would be guarded for the centuries to come from Uncle Stefan and Fair Godmother Elena.  

When Bonnie died, it was emulating the first and only hero of her life, Sheila Bennett. A car accident had left Melissa, her middle child, in a coma, her soul lingering in a limbo. Bonnie consciously sacrificed her life-energy to bring Melissa back. Damon supported her through it, and he was there when she crossed over.

He took her hand as the door to the Other Side opened for her. “I will come with you” he promised as she looked back and around for last time to their home, to the heritage they were leaving behind.

“We had such a life…” Bonnie could not avoid being amazed at it, now all was over. So much sorrow and so much joy, a family they were thick as thieves with, a heritage set to outlast them. Amazing friends that made it all possible and so many adventures, a wonderful love-story even death could not put a damper on.

They had it had all. How had she not noticed until it was the time to leave?

“No regrets. Two centuries behind me, and there were no years I spent better than those I was mortal again in. We did it all, witchy. I am glad I have loved you, even the days you have not made it easy, you old shrew.”

“So the _older_ neurotic coot says. Your antics gave me more white hairs than any of our kids, or _their_ kids for the matter, but I have adored you for it.”

“I wish we could have a last drink to well spent time.”

“ _Thank you for waiting for me.”_ – her throat clenched on the words because she knew that if he had not, as human … he could have ended somewhere else entirely, in an Afterlife she could not reach him to, now instead she will bring him with her … or stay down here with him

“hush woman, it is now or never.”

They both glared at the transparent Door hanging in the air, and glanced to each other in a mute question of whether it was better to just keep haunting the house, together. Then, in just as mute decision, they walked straight through it, hand-holding, and they let the Other Side to shallow them up, with identical squared jaws and jutted out chins.

 

Death turned to be truly the Next Great Adventure. Another beginning. Sheila surprised them right away by being on the other side of the door to receive them.

Damon and Bonnie joined the crowd of witch ancestors in a small ghost town struck in between different timelines and worlds. It was the strangest place to get used, at first, and the transition was not made any smoother by the presence in there of several witches Damon had killed in his vampire days. But you got to be as young or old looking as you pleased, and that was a blast. Besides, they got to watch over their family, to guide and protect generations of it with advice and _plots._ Ancestor politics turned to be a challenge they were up.

Also, Grams _forced_ them to finally tie the knot.

It was by many details a strange ceremony, but the oddity suited the Salvatore’s pretty well.

Eternity stretched in front of them – better to be prepared.

 

Among the living, Bonnie’s death produced a domino effect.

Elena and Caroline met at her funeral, and they finally reconciled.

Persuasion had kept Elena young and beautiful, but living. She had pursued her dream to become a writer, at first using her power to further her career as journalist and ‘help’ people to confide in her. She had her fun with that until her youthful appearance began to look suspicious, then she settled as romance and erotica novelist under several pseudonyms. She and Stefan had married in an extremely romantic and expensive ceremony right after the birth of their first niece by Bonnie and Damon. They often regretted the impossibility to start a family of theirs ( no fertility ritual or potion had ever succeeded with them) but they consoled each other and themselves pretty well with a great sex life and traveling all over the world.

They were happy, and they kept in frequent touch with Bonnie and Damon for as long they were alive – all festive occasions were celebrated together with the Salvatore-Bennett clan, and when Stefan and Elena visited, they never failed to cover every single relative with gifts from each of the places they had visited in the rest of the year.

Bonnie’s death hit them both hard, it was the end of an era.

It inspired them to take a risk, tough – the following year they adopted a child during one of their travels in a war-torn country.

Caroline regretted she had never let her friendship with Bonnie to bend as she was alive, but the grief brought about a positive life change. Not only she forgave Stefan and made an effort to start over with Elena, but she left Klaus and his family murderous lifestyle, gave herself a chance to be fully the good person she had never really left behind. She moved to London, exchanged human prey for blood bags, and studied for a career as fashion designer.

In the centuries to come, she and Elena became like the sisters they weren’t in their teenager years, although in a different way Elena and Bonnie used to be.

Life went on, and there was a place for new bonds along with the old ones.

Bonnie Bennett managed to stay present in her friends’ lives from the grave. She popped often in their dreams when they were having a major life-crisis, even if her cryptic-speak, as Caroline came to fondly call it, could be terribly frustrating.

\--

In Mystic Falls, a Traveler witch called Liv inherited Bonnie’s role as Keeper of the contract before she left. She was chosen by the land wrights, much to everyone’s surprised. Although Bonnie had disliked her fiercely during their acquaintance, she did well by her role.

Pearl inherited the Salvatore boarding house when the brothers both moved out following Damon’s taking the cure. She made it a boardinghouse again and kept it going along with her daughter Anna and Harper.

Ben was killed by Caroline in her ‘bad vampire’ stage, in a fit of temper spurred on by his bravado.

As the Resurrected vampires could not leave the land they were bound to, they had to use enchanted jewelry to set glamour on their looks changing every twenty years or so. The land magic still protected and hid them in ways they never quite understood.

Anna enjoyed the experience of that changing normality and the family life she had always craved. She and Jeremy remained a couple, much to everyone’s surprise, through the years. Even if he moved to Portland for a time, to attend an Art School. He worked freelance as illustrator after that, but normal, for him, was quite never enough. He grew a sinister reputation as vampire slaying vampire, getting off the violence of the kill and the draining of another predator. Anna on occasion got off watching him as he killed, and made violently love to him afterwards. She pet-called him her beautiful monster, and he never stopped seeing her as his Juliet.

Mystic Falls gained a reputation as a sleepy, incredibly quiet small town .

Yet, when Caroline and Stefan and Elena made it a habit to return to their hometown at the passing of every century, finding refuge in the old lake house that had once belonged to Elena’s parents, they always found themselves in a net of secrets, lies and supernatural danger. Darkness just never left that place, and it never slept despite the appearances. It just learned to hide better its traps. They learned to love it for what it was – their very cradle and birthing chamber.

Katherine?

She was another who never changed. She came every few centuries in their lives, just when they had managed to forget her, and she brought back with her all her deceptions and twisted games. She became the dance partner nobody wanted but nobody could refuse. Or kill, and not for their lack of trying.

Eventually, she just seemed to drop off the face of the planet for good.

Nobody but the Original family kept in casual contact with, knew that one day, she had just got bored of everything , removed her ring and walked into sunlight. The reward of a life lived without any attachments, Elijah would have commented in passing.

He couldn’t know he was , maybe, slightly off the mark.

Bonnie and Damon had the misfortune of finding her on the Other Side, and reach a different conclusion.

Katherine Pierce didn’t change.

Even in the realms beyond the door, she created her peculiar brand of havoc tirelessly. The difference? Her grand-daughter Nadia, that strayed never too far away from her side. Her son Kai who possibly _worse than good old Kat was,_ an eventuality even Damon would have not considered as a real possibility.

Even the devil has loved ones, and love is all what leaves a trace, when the show is over and the curtain falls.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack to this chapter: If I Lose Myself- One Republic
> 
> I will follow you into the dark- death cab for cutie
> 
> Share the love – c.cremonini
> 
>  
> 
> AUTHOR NOTE:
> 
> Damn, I am moved. I will miss this story, its characters (and its readers too ;) ). To weave this little tapestry of words was a delight, and I grew fond of this little universe of mine , this darker Mystic Falls.
> 
> Kudos to all who caught the parallels with various seasons and oh, I nearly cried as I wrote the scene where oldBamon crossed over, nearly like their canon counterparts too. Raise your hand if thinking of Kai as this Katherine’s son, and of their post mortem unholy alliance, makes you to fear the world’s fate. 
> 
> *mine is the first hand up*
> 
> Sacred Geometry was always supposed to have an open ending, and I was tempted to go with a sequel that showed *this* group of beautiful and scarred heroes fighting the Originals for the town. Maybe someday I will get to write that story, but with college work starting up again so soon, I can’t take that commitment, and frankly I wanted that the readers that stuck around to see this finished had a clear last picture of where those characters were headed. Down to the bittersweet ending. If we can call it an ending, since the adventure goes on and on… forever. That’s what I loved about writing this epilogue; everything is over and it is not at same time.
> 
> Life goes on, but nobody is forgotten, and everybody gains a place, a tale of their own. The end is not truly the end, but more like the beginning of yet another tale. Sacred Geometry at work, indeed.
> 
> I might decide to return to this universe so dear to me, (next summer? For the het big bang? I have thought of it, at least) and write about Bamon and their big, complicated family joining them on the Other Side when their own race ends. To have them together again for a new grand adventure. Or to go deeper into the war against the Originals. But *this* tale is still complete as it is, and I hope you enjoyed it as such! Thank you for reading.


End file.
